00:02 John Daub: Hello everybody, welcome to Kayabacho in Tokyo. You can see the cherry blossoms are about full bloom here. This is the part of the central city of Tokyo, Chūō-ku (Chuo Ward), and you can see there's like a cherry blossom tunnel, which is absolutely stunning. I'm going to walk across the street right now and give you a better view of it. This goes all the way to Tokyo Station, to the Yaesu exit there. It's really beautiful. And over the next couple of minutes, you're going to get a chance to enjoy it with me too. We're live here in Tokyo.

00:41 John Daub: The cherry blossoms start actually over there. This is the end of the cherry blossom street at Kayabacho. If you don't know where it is, I put a map link in the description here. A lot of people are crossing the street. Everybody just stops in the middle, looks, and then they go, oh wow. And take a look. And then somebody takes a picture. Maybe not on that crossing. But a lot of the crossings people have been doing that. How you doing? It is, this is the part of spring I don't like. It feels like winter. It's really cold right now. Yesterday was warm. I could almost wear shorts yesterday. Today, I have to wear almost a winter jacket and I have three layers underneath here.

01:29 John Daub: Got to get your down jacket on. It's a little bit chilly and this is the part of spring I just don't like. It's unpredictable right now. And if you're coming to Tokyo, dressing for the city is really hard. You can see there's people lining up for lunch as well. This is 12 o'clock in the Kayabacho region. A lot of office buildings and salaried workers. Let's see if I can put the mic in a better spot here. All right. Okay, let's walk down the street and see what we can see. Kind of enjoy it. What is that? That looks like, is that like a tendon place? Boy, there's a long line of people to get in there.

02:07 John Daub: You'll find a lot of hidden gems of restaurants in the city of Tokyo. All right, let's wait for this taxi to go by and then we're going to cross the street and do one more shot. It's really stunning, isn't it? This isn't Nakameguro. This isn't Ueno Park. This isn't Shinjuku Gyoen. This is just Kayabacho. And it's absolutely stunning. Sakura Dori (Cherry Blossom Street).

02:39 John Daub: They cut down a lot of the cherry blossoms. They're near Tokyo Station for the construction and I believe they're going to replant them. But as long as there's no car coming, I can kind of stand here for a minute and let you soak it in. There you go. Kayabacho. It is stunning, isn't it? Look at that. And the cherry blossoms meet and create a kind of a tunnel that seems to go on forever. That car is much further away than you think it is. All right, let's walk down a little bit further and see what we can see here. You don't have to be going to the places where all the tourists are.

03:35 John Daub: Unlike the Nakameguro River, one of the reasons why that's such an attraction. And look at these cherry blossoms just popping out. The thing that makes the Nakameguro River such a popular place is the fact that it's got street food and stands and there's a festival feeling to it. This is more like business residential, you know, but according to the website. Chūō-ku, which is the Chuo Ward, the central city part of Tokyo, that's the ward that I live in, they have 150 sakura (cherry blossom) trees lining the street. It seems like a lot more than that, but they're just bigger, more mature sakura trees here. Sakura meaning cherry blossom. It's a variety and no, there are no cherries that grow on cherry blossoms. I know what you guys are thinking. That's not what we got here. This is a completely different kind of beast of nature.

05:16 John Daub: It's absolutely beautiful though. In particular this time of year in Tokyo is very nice. It's becoming an attraction and I was on Japanese TV two days ago, a show that I've been doing for 10 years now called Hirōbi [?], that's me. And they asked me to come in here and talk about the foreign visitors perspective on cherry blossoms and I said, well, you know, it's a little bit unusual. Because for Japanese this is like a cultural seasonal thing, but I think for many visitors here it's like an attraction like Tokyo Tower or Tokyo Skytree or something like this. And that was just my feeling. I could have gotten it wrong, but the thing is people plan their trips around trying to see the cherry blossoms and that is really hard to do. If not like really dangerous, because there's a great chance that you're not going to be able to catch them.

06:16 John Daub: I also said, I also reported about how people were a little bit upset that the cherry blossoms were late and I got a little bit of blame. If you read my Instagram comments that are kind of funny, there were some people that blame me for their trip because I said that the best peak time is March 23rd to 26th I think is not the case this year. And I got a little bit of trouble. And then the host of the show said, don't blame yourself, blame the weatherman. And he pointed to the weatherman who was on the set with us. That was kind of a light moment in the show. Kind of fun time. But you can see, you know, we're very close to full bloom. I like this part, the dark bark of the sakura trees. And you have these blossoms popping out of them. I'm real slow here. It's such a beautiful thing. And you know, this only comes. It's about 10 days out of the year.

07:27 John Daub: But we only got a couple of days this year because the cherry blossoms are going to be gone on Sunday according to weather reports. Now some of them aren't out yet. But most of them that are out right now, they're going to peak on Saturday and then the first rain is Sunday. And then it's going to rain for the rest of the week. So we have some really cruddy weather coming out. And that's going to impact our cherry blossoms this year. However, that's just Tokyo. The fact is that the cherry blossoms are all over the country and you can go to places like Hirosaki and Aomori in the last third of April, which is like the 22nd or so. And you can see the cherry blossoms there.

08:15 John Daub: There's a little bit break in the Sakura Dori here as you go over the expressway and then it picks up on the other side and it'll take you a little bit this way. But if you are in the city and you're staying around Tokyo Station, it's worth walking from Kayabacho. You can see there's the Tokyo Expressway. Interesting story about this highway. It follows a river and it meanders because they dried up a river to make it. That's why it's underground right now. But part of the highway is above ground and a lot of it is under the ground where a river used to be. It was the easiest way to build the highway before the 1964 Olympics. And they needed to modernize the country. I've driven it many, many times and it's kind of a... you feel like you're playing a video game watching the tall buildings going by above and the cars speeding by you because nobody follows the speed limits on the Shutoko (Tokyo Expressway).

09:27 John Daub: Look at this food truck. It's got some soup curry. Oh, that smelled nice. Here's a guy taking a picture of the blossoms. Oh, that's a good one. Again, this is the time when your office or your house or your neighborhood has this really wonderful look to it that you're not going to get any time of the year except for right now. I can cross the street here. And you can see across, I think this is Showa Dori [?]. You can see that the blossoms will continue past the Mitsukoshi Department Store to Tokyo Station. And if I zoom, you get a better look there. It's really pretty. As you see, Tokyo cruising by at 40 kilometers per hour.

10:41 John Daub: It feels cold. I don't care what the weather report says. It's not what you think. There is this chill in the air of April that you'll get in the beginning before spring really breaks and the weather gets warmer. And this is what I'm talking about. This is when people get sick and this is when you have to be really careful. Dressing for spring in Tokyo is very hard if you're coming here for the cherry blossoms. I say wait until May if you can, but if you've seen the cherry blossoms, just wait a little bit. It's cold. And then it gets hot and then it gets cold again and everybody's kind of sick and the pollen in the air is really bad. Look at this. Look at this cherry blossom variety. Is this like a Takizakura [?]? This is so pretty. Look at this one.

12:00 John Daub: Now a lot of these trees, you're just going to see them at Shinjuku Gyoen. The reason why you go to Shinjuku Gyoen is because it has every single variety of sakura tree it seems. And it's blooming at all these different times, but in particular right now you can catch a lot of them. The reason why I don't like Shinjuku Gyoen is because it closes at 4. You're not allowed to drink any alcohol inside there. And I believe it's by reservation only. You have to make an appointment online in order to see it. Thank you Jason. Yes, the postcards, in fact if you sign up for the, maybe should I say that, I got some extra postcards from last month. If you're a new subscriber to the Postcard Club, maybe I'll send you last month's postcard if I have them. I'll send you two for the price of one if you sign up today to the Postcard Club. And the postcards will be going out tomorrow, sorry, next week. This one is from last month. It's one of my favorites. It was all of us.

13:06 John Daub: Yeah I'll look at the sign ups on Patreon if you sign up today and you're a new subscriber, a new viewer, just for today. I'll send you this Sakura postcard as well. And if you ever not get your postcards, all you gotta do is write me. Sometimes these postcards do not make it in the mail. It's like, I think it's one out of every hundred, so maybe you have to resend about, I don't know, like three or four every month. Or they get super damaged. But that is very rare actually. I think that hasn't been happening too often lately. That's kind of cool. We try to find an original stamp and you feel like, it's like I'm putting something in the mail and it's coming right to you. It's really cool. Something cool about receiving the mail that's not a bill in your mailbox.

13:59 John Daub: It's kind of pretty this way too. Almost looks like it's snow, doesn't it? That's one of the things I love about the Cherry Blossom Tunnels because it creates this perfect, I don't know, like effect that just covers you 180 degrees. You look up as you walk underneath it and it looks just like freshly fallen snow. And you know, this is an area of Tokyo that's not very beautiful. Check this out here. So this is where I am right now. So I'm in central Tokyo. It's just not a real pretty place. A lot of this is our new buildings from the 1950s and 60s and over those years they've renovated so you have some from the 80s and 90s. Not a lot of old stuff here. Kind of boring. But the cherry blossoms bring it to life.

15:02 John Daub: You can see Tokyo Station on the left side so it's really close. There's the highway that we crossed over there. That yellow streak that goes through the city is the highway. And we're here. And you know, this is where I started the live stream. This is the road from Kayabacho and it's not a particularly impressive road unless the blossoms are falling and maybe that's why they put the 150 blossoms here. I'm not sure. I'm grateful for it. I think we all are. Because it makes this a special place. When you see all these businesses that are kind of bland with these white blossoms it certainly is, it's different. You know, it's special. And that's kind of cool. Seeing the traffic lights with the blossoms is also kind of cool. I have to be honest, it's kind of neat.

16:07 John Daub: I'm not the only one who likes to see the traffic lights. Even with the camera walking around with eyes that have stars in them right now, it's just a stunning thing. Again Kayabacho, if you get a hotel, there's lots of hotels in the area. It's a cheaper place to stay compared to right at Tokyo Station but you can walk to Tokyo Station in about 10 minutes. On this side there's not a lot. You can see there's no cherry blossoms lining the streets here that's going towards Kayabacho Station. But on this road, Sakura Dori. There are tons of cherry blossoms. There's a lot of them.

16:52 John Daub: I think I've shown you in the past, because this is a live streaming channel that's what, 6, 7 years old now, in the past I've shown you what it looks like at Tokyo Station. So if you want to see the end of it near Yaesu's side of Tokyo Station, you can do that. All you have to do is Google it, only in Japan go, and I guess you just put here Tokyo Station Sakura Dori. Something like that. Dori means street. There's a Nakau [?], which is, I guess you'd say like a quick order Japanese restaurant. There's a bunch of people ordering. Yeah. Sitting down at a counter. It's counter service Japanese cuisine that looks pretty good. I've eaten at Nakau several times over my course of living here in Japan. It's always like 500 yen or something like that. It's pretty good.

17:39 John Daub: So it looks like we're past, some of these trees are past full bloom. You see the green starting to pop out. And they're already starting to see the blossoms falling from the trees onto the road, which is a really nice sight. But this area is a little bit warmer than other places in Tokyo just because of all the buildings and glass and the reflecting light. And you can see on the ground here there are some white blossom petals that are falling. So that means that when it rains, probably we're going to see a lot more falling onto the ground. So we're, this part of the city, I'd say we're at the peak and we're at the end of it. So that means by next week it'll be done here.

18:38 John Daub: I got really angry at National Geographic on Instagram. It's not like rage angry, but I wrote to them and I said, stop making Japanese cherry blossoms political. Stop talking about cherry blossoms and climate change and scaring people. Can't we just stop for a couple of days and enjoy it without having Western media scare people with this? Sure, I think we all know that it's going on, but you can just stop and make this a time of peace and let us enjoy it. Because I'll tell you, Japanese media is not talking about this. It's just purely Western media that's scaring people. It's kind of made me a little upset today. I don't really get upset. So getting upset's like, I let a comment like, stop making this political, I think. Bunch of party poopers.

19:33 John Daub: You can see the side here. Do you see it? All the petals. So they're starting to build up here. I know and cherry blossoms were like two weeks late. And they keep on doing it. They just keep on banging this drum. So I don't get it. I don't know. You can stop being an activist for a couple of days in the most beautiful time of the day, because nobody wants to be that person's friend. It's a reason why I unfollowed National Geographic. I'm just done with it. It's too much. It's like, what happened to these people? Can't they just have a little fun sometimes?

20:27 John Daub: It is chilly. They're still waiting in line. So those scooters that you see people riding by on, I believe you need a license. I kind of looked it up again. So you need to have a driver's license in order to do it, because you need to know the rules of the road. And it's like having a moped. There's a license plate on them. So they have to be on the road with a license plate. They're different than bicycles. So I think they're more regulated. But I saw a couple of them scooting by, but they're becoming more and more popular. There's a guy with a 200-meter lens. Getting a little bit of a shock. I think they're getting some good shots. I don't know if you need to have insurance.

21:15 John Daub: I think that might be when you sign up for the website. You have to sign up for the service. I think you pay a monthly fee or something. I'm not quite sure. But I'm pretty sure when you sign up for it, you get the insurance included, which is why you're signing up and paying. But if you do run into somebody, you know, when I bought my bicycle, you can get insurance for bicycle riders, because if you plow into somebody on your bicycle and they get hurt, you're liable. I know people that have gotten in trouble had to pay people's medical bills and stuff because of bicycle accidents.

22:04 John Daub: Oh, that's probably not a good idea. I saw those people were in the middle of the street, but it's a red light. This is the part where please, please, whatever you do, be careful. Okay? Please don't go in the middle of the street on a red light. You can cross the street. Just. You can cross the street slowly, but just keep moving. Just kind of keep moving, which is fun. All right. Where am I? I'm here. This is Kayabacho Station. If you've never been here before, there's not a lot of reasons to come here. I think I did a live stream walking around here. There's a couple of neat restaurants, just some popular places, mostly for office workers.

22:58 John Daub: But it's at this time of year that it's super special and it's worth coming and doing a walk in particular if your hotel is around here, if you've got an hour before the Shinkansen or something, you can go ahead and do that. I think the Bank of Japan and the Tokyo Stock Exchange is right around here as well. It's pretty close to Nihonbashi as well. That's right. Geir Zeretsu [?] is pretty close by. There's some blossoms over there. But that's it. I'm going to pick up Leo early today. Kanae's getting off maybe at 1 or 2, and then maybe I'll do another live stream later on in the afternoon. Maybe.

23:41 John Daub: But I didn't want to make this a cherry blossom season, but I keep on getting messages for people to please go and show different areas of Tokyo now with the cherry blossoms. And I'm like, okay. You have to make content that people want to watch and people are really interested because if you can't be here, I can be here for you. And I feel like I did during the pandemic when a lot of you guys couldn't come here to Japan. Now, a lot of you are here, but not at this time. So it's kind of cool to be able to share. I'm going to share with you what you would see if you were here, and this is what it is. Particularly when we're live like this. There's a feeling to it. Right now it's kind of chill because I'm a little bit cold. But it's a beautiful time of year, and it makes the city just a little bit more beautiful.

24:37 John Daub: Hey, Champagne Sumo's here! Long time no see! Beer fun. You got it. In fact, I will use that to buy some sake for some cherry blossom viewing on Saturday. Okay. And you guys are going to want to join me on Saturday. I'll probably do more than one live stream. It'll be Friday night in the US. Taking you around to certain places because that's going to be the most beautiful time of the day, of the week for the cherry blossoms in Tokyo anyways. And then we're going to be ending it here. How long do you think they last? Usually about 10 days, but they started blooming about five days ago and it's going to peak on Saturday mostly. And then after the peak, the first rain and the first wind. Pretty much blows them all away and that's going to be the next day according to weather reports. But they don't all bloom at the same time. So you just don't know. You can't say a definitive day. But I would say by Wednesday of next week, we're pretty much at the back end of it.

25:34 John Daub: And I'd say by Sunday and Monday, we're pretty much past the peak in Tokyo, which means you got to go to elevation. According to the news, I'm going to say these facts again. It was interesting because the news has the scientific research behind it. The cherry blossoms move 20km north every day. So 20km north every day and 30m higher elevation wise. So when Tokyo is done, you can get 30m higher and you'll save a day so you'll be able to go to Mount Takao and you can be able to see it if you had 150m five days after, something like this. So that's an interesting note. 20km north every day so after Tokyo is done if you go 20 kilometers north they're probably at the end there so if you go 100 kilometers north you're five days back in a time machine of where they were in Tokyo. It's kind of interesting right? I didn't know about this until I went to the TV studio a couple days ago. Pretty cool.

26:38 John Daub: I'll leave you with the if you haven't already I'll leave you with this live stream of Shibuya here. This is one of the most this is a really pretty street on the backside of Shibuya station. Again you have these like views side views of the cherry blossoms in urban settings and that that's sort of what makes Tokyo really popular. I wouldn't say that Tokyo is the best place to come and see the cherry blossoms. I really don't think that's the case but this is a beautiful place and those pink lanterns make a glow at sunset which a lot of Instagramers seem to really love but you get a lot of things like the cherry blossoms. Lot of this right now. Urban setting, beautiful white cherry blossoms, looks like it snowed but it's kind of warm outside. But today not so warm but that's spring in Tokyo. Alright thank you Champagne Sumo and everybody else I'll see you in the live stream real soon. Matane. Maybe I can end this with one more walking across the street here.