00:00:01 John Daub: How you doing everybody? Welcome to Tokyo. It is September, still a little ways away from the autumn foliage, the changing of the leaves. The first forecast came in a few days ago and I thought I would share that with you on when the autumn foliage is actually going to be out and about in Japan. And it's getting harder and harder every year. Last year's foliage, there were some problems with it. The summer was way too hot in 2023. I went up, I was going to make a video on Yamadera up there in Yamagata Prefecture. But the people there kept telling me this is not the best time. This is probably not the best year because the summers are so hot in 2023 and again this year, maybe even hotter than last year. The biggest issue with the schedules and the things that maybe people might not tell you that I learned from last year's experience were that the colors are not as vibrant as they were five, six, seven years ago.

00:01:01 John Daub: Yellows are less yellow. Reds are less red. They're more brown. They're burnt out. There's something with the chlorophyll having too much sun or heat on them. So it depends on where you go. But up in Yamagata, which is one of the most beautiful places to see the autumn foliage last year, it was not nearly as like firework eye-popping as it was once in the past. Never mind that it's still autumn. It's still going to be really beautiful. So let's look at the schedule right here. So I have a couple of articles as well as the report from the Japan Meteorological Corporation themselves.

00:01:38 John Daub: The autumn foliage here, you see it's starting to turn already up in probably the very north part of Hokkaido. You'll start to see some of the foliage, the colors changing in Daisetsuzan National Park up there, maybe up in Wakkanai. I think you start to see it in the beginning of October. So we're a few weeks away from that. That part in the red up in the north, it says Sapporo starts on November 8th, but I'm going to say it could be, I don't know. It's hard to really predict it. They're going to do another prediction, they said, in early October. So this is just the first one here. They're not quite sure because, let's be honest, it's still pretty freaking hot right now. I got sweat dripping down my back as I speak.

00:02:23 John Daub: But typically, the very north of Hokkaido starts to see the colors start to change at the beginning of October, believe it or not, at elevation. And it starts to work its way down from there. Temperatures drop down. When I hitchhiked in Asahikawa and Wakkanai in 2003, I remember vividly, I saw some colors. This is in September. But it was 5 degrees Celsius or about, what is that, like under 50 degrees Fahrenheit in September up there. It was really chilly. So you're starting to feel at night that autumn chill up there.

00:03:04 John Daub: So again, this is just a guideline for 2024. I think it's wrong. I think it's going to be much later than this. In Fukuoka and in Kyushu, typically the autumn foliage doesn't change until December. I thought that was a little bit late because I had never lived down there. But when I went to Takasaki-yama in Oita Prefecture in December, I was like, oh, that's a little bit late. I'm like, wait, why haven't the leaves changed here? Because they've already changed in, oh, we're a little bit more west and a little bit more south than Tokyo. But it's very hard to predict the autumn foliage.

00:03:39 John Daub: Tokyo, and this is the question that I received from a viewer here. And this is why I'm doing this episode. When does the foliage change colors in Tokyo? And I got this about 20 hours ago on a video asking for questions. So I want to say thank you to SergeyWaresIt9916 for the question. Tokyo's autumn foliage starts to change, I would say, at the end of November. I think you'll start to see it a little bit, but it won't really change until the end of November. And that includes, you'll probably get a chance to see a lot of it in December.

00:04:23 John Daub: So if you're planning a trip around the autumn foliage months in advance, that's getting harder and harder to do just because you simply can't predict when it's, it's almost like the cherry blossoms, whether they're too early or they're too late. They're never really right on schedule. And that's the problem with these schedules. However, with that said, people still need to book hotels and still need to make the best prediction that they possibly can. So I'm going to say that it's probably going to be about a week later than what you see here and maybe even more so. But they're taking a lot into account. That means Osaka is going to be like in December. Kyoto, typically the weekend that's booked out is like November 17th and 18th.

00:05:08 John Daub: Whatever weekend is around that, the third weekend of November, second and third weekend of November, usually hotels are booked out and prices skyrocket to two to three times the price of it. Because everybody wants to go to Kyoto to see the temples and the shrines covered in autumn foliage. Kiyomizu-dera, Kinkaku-ji, all these places that are iconic. They're just different when you have the fall colors. That's going to be, I would say, two weeks later than that. So we're going to say like the beginning of December, you're going to start to see the autumn foliage changing Kyoto. That's my guesstimate. I could be wrong on this, but this year it looks like it's going to be later.

00:05:54 John Daub: The Japan Meteorological Corporation released the 2024 foliage forecast. This was on September 3rd. So just not that long ago, the JMC released its first forecast for the start of autumn foliage. JMC has estimated the best viewing dates of red leaves, maple trees and the yellow leaves, ginkgo trees for approximately 700 viewing locations around the country. They're predicting here that for the red leaves, Sapporo is going to be on November 8th. And the average date is October 28th. So around Halloween for Sapporo, that seems about right. So it's about a week, it's about ten days later everywhere, except for Aomori, which is two days later, which is odd.

00:06:50 John Daub: So basically the autumn colors are going to be later than usual. I thought maybe like it would be earlier because of it's just so hot and then but autumn. But that's why they're staying later because it is so darn hot. That means that summer is going to stick around a little bit longer. Here's Tokyo. They're saying that Tokyo is on December 1st and that's three days later than what usually is on November 28th. So I'm going to say it's going to be even later than that just because of the heat. And the colors won't be as vibrant this year, just like last year. And a lot of complaints were on the colors. It just didn't seem the same. This year was very similar to 2023, if not hotter.

00:07:29 John Daub: We had a lot of sunshine. It was very, very hot. That's going to deplete the chlorophyll. And they have an article on that from the Japan Times on how the hotter and the longer summers are making autumn foliage not as vibrant. Kanazawa is six days later. Kyoto has December 12th. Wow. That's like a month later than ten years ago. And then the yellow leaf forecast is a little bit later. So you're going to see autumn colors depending on the tree at different times. The ginkgo leaves are really beautiful at Aoyama University and the Jingumae area leading up to the parliamentary building there. It's just a beautiful location.

00:08:16 John Daub: Here's what the Japan Times has on this. The impact of the autumn leaves viewing the fall foliage, a particularly a national obsession, according to the Japan Meteorological Corporation, which provides the fall foliage for 700 locations. It's going to be later than normal. In almost all the major cities around the country, the arrival of vibrant maple leaves is expected to be two to nine days later than usual. The weather forecaster at the firm says the predictions are based on past data. This year's season is later than usual because temperatures were quite high in September, a trend that has followed into October. It's known that color changes start when it falls below 20 degrees Celsius and deepens below 10 degrees Celsius.

00:09:10 John Daub: We're not getting that as well. So, again, another reason why the colors aren't as vibrant autumn leaf coloring is affected not just by temperature, but also by other factors, including sunshine hours, which we've had a lot of. And the process varies by region and plant. Like most flora, maple leaves contain a green pigment called chlorophyll, which is needed for photosynthesis. These leaves start changing color in the autumn when the chlorophyll is broken down as the weather changes. So basically the weather has changed so abruptly the color change isn't going to be as vibrant.

00:09:42 John Daub: Yet last year in November, I went when I thought it was going to be peak season, some of the images from last year. This is, I don't know, about 10 months ago in November. There's one tree right up there and we're in elevation a little bit. But you could see most of the valley hadn't changed yet. And this is like November 20th or something like that. I probably need to go a little bit later, but, you know, it's very hard to predict. Everybody was telling me this year is going to be a lot later. And this is from Yamadera at the viewing platform up on the temple there. One of the most stunning places in all of Japan.

00:10:27 John Daub: I did a live stream up here so you can go and check that on the channel from last year. But if you look down there, this is supposed to be the peak time. I'm surprised I had this place all to myself. It's up in Yamagata, so kind of far from Tokyo. But you can see the autumn colors just aren't there yet. It's late. And the weather was reasonable. It didn't feel like autumn yet. And this was November in Yamagata. So, yeah, I think that the warmer weather is definitely making an impact on the colors. So expect to see in December foliage changes.

00:11:09 John Daub: You might be too early and miss it because it's happening later. Now, the first prediction in September is saying two to seven days, two to six days later, I'm going to say it's going to be later than that, because right now we still have very hot days. The humidity is down a little bit compared to August. But we're still getting a ton of sunshine. If you see up there, we've got beautiful blue skies. We've got beautiful blue skies and a lot of sunshine coming through. And these leaves right here, some of them are starting to fall off already. It's just too hot. But you can see they look definitely stressed out by the amount of sunshine that we've been getting.

00:11:50 John Daub: So how do you plan your trip around the autumn colors? I don't know. I just do know that it's a beautiful time in Japan to go and see the leaves. And if you're looking at Japan at this time of year, it's stunning. I think a lot of these images are photoshopped. If you search here, like get Japan, you'll see the autumn color temple. You get what looks like some of the most beautiful scenes. It's very Japanese to go to the temples and shrines at this time of year. And you can see a panning through Google images. It's so wonderful.

00:12:31 John Daub: But it depends on place to place and tree to tree. So some trees are probably just fine up there in the mountains. You're probably going to get more vibrant colors just because the temperatures change a little bit quicker. And I think they're more in the clouds. The morning mist is there. So it kind of shields those trees from the harsh sunlight a little bit more than it does at sea level. But, you know, every place is different. If you haven't made reservations for places, probably you want to do that now. The best onsen in particular, because now you can go and take it. It's too hot. But in the autumn with the beautiful autumn foliage, you want to be naked outside in the bath. It's pretty cool. It's really cool to be out there.

00:13:29 John Daub: This is the schedule for the Ginkgo trees. It's different. We've got they call them the yellow foliage. And again, it's a little bit earlier. So you can see the schedule up there. This is from the Japan Meteorological Corporation. If we keep going a little bit further, they brought up the dates again. And I'll put a link in the description. I think this is going to be your authoritative source on this, on when the red leaves change and when the other leaves change. So I'll put a link in the description and you can find all this information. Check back in October. But if you have to make a reservation for your hotel now, the best thing would be to go with the data that they have.

00:14:25 John Daub: But make sure you consider that it looks like it's going to be even a couple days later than that they were wrong about the spring foliage. Sorry about the cherry blossoms this year. It was way, way later. They were way off on the schedule. Tokyo was just, yeah, I think was delayed this year because of the cold winter that we had so much for climate change. It's just weird climate. I guess what we should say here is there's some weird climate going on. But the predictions have not been on. But my gut says it's going to be even later than what they are forecasting.

00:15:06 John Daub: So if you're booking your hotel, maybe the beginning and the middle of December, you're probably going to see some beautiful foliage in Kyoto at that time. And if you're thinking of going to Tokyo and staying here to see autumn foliage. First of all, Tokyo stinks for autumn foliage. You probably don't want to be in Tokyo. Look, the parks are nice, but this is not the best place to go to for autumn foliage. You want to be out in the Japanese countryside. You want to be at those temples and shrines. Yamadera in Yamagata is definitely a top pick for that kind of foliage. Going up to Tohoku is really nice. Kyushu and Shikoku, amazing places.

00:15:45 John Daub: And then going to the Sea of Japan side. Also, I recommend Daisen and Tottori and Shimane Prefecture, a place that doesn't have a lot of tourists, really beautiful on that side of Japan for the autumn foliage. Tokyo is not. You're coming for the city experience. They have some leaves here, but you kind of want to get out of the city. You can go out to the Tama region of Tokyo. You can take trains for about an hour and go to west Tokyo. And then you have that same countryside view. That's the same as Tokyo. And the leaves are maybe going to be a couple of days earlier than in the city where it is quite warm with the asphalt and all the buildings around, the glass reflecting onto the trees.

00:16:20 John Daub: And the city do make it the foliage change a couple of days later than in other parts, just because of reflection of the sun. Kamakura is beautiful as well. Kamakura is absolutely stunning with the temples down there. And there's a lot of tourists right now in Kamakura because of some of the anime and some of the there's like a train that goes by on the ocean side. It's been pretty ridiculous that people want to take pictures of that from an anime. But Kamakura has been pretty crowded. I expect it to continue in that way. So my advice to you is to go early to these places and finish early, then get back and go do the places. When everybody is there, you're somewhere else. That would be my advice to you.

00:17:05 John Daub: Japan's a country where you should be waking up early. It's the land of the rising sun. It's still going to be hot in October. We don't know what the typhoons there's a typhoon coming towards Japan right now. If it does come in this region and in fact, impact travel, I'll let you know. But right now it doesn't look like that. I don't know if there's any typhoons imminent for Tokyo, but we don't know what October weather is going to look like, of course. However, if it's anything like today, it's going to be really hot. And comparatively and I hope that it stays less humidity. Maybe I can deal with the sunshine, but already I'm starting to see that the sun is setting much earlier than it was two months ago. You're already starting to see it's getting dark around 5:30 p.m.

00:17:51 John Daub: All right, everybody. I hope this is useful for you. If any questions, even the comments below. I'll try to give you another update on this. It's a little bit too far out. But again, we've seen that the first update is out the first forecast and there it is on your screen right there. And this is an indicator. But I would say that it's going to be about even a week later than this. And if you were a week later, you'd probably catch it at its peak then. And keep that in mind. The foliage seems to peak and last for about 10 days before it's just completely gone. And then you see all the leaves on the ground there. All right, everybody. See you in another episode. And leave me a question if you have one just like this one. I really do appreciate the questions and I'll try to make more episodes based on your feedback on things that you are interested in on this channel. Don't forget to subscribe.