00:01 John Daub: Every single March 1st, March 2nd, March 3rd, right around now, it's Hinamatsuri (dolls' festival) in Japan. I'm reminded how much I don't like traveling in March. It is the weirdest temperatures in Japan. At least February, you can count on it being cold. You know how to dress for that. Having to dress for March in Japan is really challenging, and this could make or break a trip here. I wanted to discuss a little bit about this so that your trip could be maybe enhanced for this livestream. Because looking at today's weather, this is pretty much like every single March that I can remember. It always starts off like this, just like cold rain. This could be snow. It's right on the fringe. It's just really not comfortable. I'm hiding outside of a bathroom here in Tokyo, in a neighborhood.

01:01 John Daub: March, it's like winter, and then it turns into spring. But in between the beginning of March and the end of March, depending on when you come to Japan and for how long you're staying here, it is really hard to pack. Because it starts off as winter and it sort of ends as sort of spring. Meaning yesterday at the Tokyo Marathon, I had shorts on. And now, like I can see my breath. It's just crazy the way it just swings from one to the other. And this is nothing new. This is historical stuff. Let me go through this really quickly. So this is March 2023, the temperature history. And it's all about the temperature. I'll talk about the rain in a second here. It starts off around March 1st, February on the left, April on the right. March 1st, last year, it was kind of warm in the 60s. And then March 4th or 5th, or March 3rd, it went right down into the lower 40s again. And we're going Fahrenheit for the Americans. So lower 40s would be about 6 degrees Celsius, going up to about 20 degrees Celsius. So the swing is incredible all the way from shorts weather. For me, it's shorts. Anything above 60 is shorts weather for me. And then down to like you need to have almost a down jacket.

02:31 John Daub: Now, I want to talk about the cold in March for a second. So this is 2023. 2024 was even worse with the swings because we got a swing. And this is why the cherry blossoms get kind of messed up. There was a swing. It was mostly cold in the beginning of March. Like it got up to 60 around March 1st or 2nd, which is about 15 to 10, 13, 14, 15 degrees Celsius. And then it dipped right down to near freezing by March 8th. It was cold and would go up and down, up and down. Maybe that's the daylight and the nighttime temperatures. But it stayed pretty cold last year with an average temperature of around 50, but it was really chilly for most of it. And I think that the temperature at the end of March where it got super warm, that really threw it off. But the majority of the month was like around 50 degrees on average, but it felt a lot worse. And this is what I'm talking about with temperature here today. So I don't know exactly what the temperature is today. I think it's, of course, above freezing. It feels like it's freezing, not just because of the rain, but because there's a chill in the air. There's like a breeze. March is very well known for being a windy month. So you throw in cold rain. You throw in rain with wind. Tokyo is miserable at this time of year.

04:04 John Daub: And like when people ask me, is March a good time to travel? I say, no, May is a good time to travel. But March is not bad. You just go when you got to go, which is true with bathroom breaks. Got a three-year-old kid. So go when you got to go. March in general, though, when you're looking at it, the rain really starts to fall this time of year. It says on average it's eight days. Eight days out of the year. And of course, June is the rainy, rainy month starts, right? Tsuyu (rainy season). But eight days out of, that's like a third of the month. Roughly about a third of the month is rain. Not always great. And you're getting, compared to February, and a lot of that is at the end of March, right? So right now it's not the end of March. So the rain is miserable right now. This is why I look miserable in the thumbnail picture for this episode. The average temperatures really start to increase at the end of March, but the beginning of it is really hard. You can see February average temperature in Tokyo. It's 10 degrees Celsius or 50 degrees Fahrenheit. And it's close to freezing at night. So it's pretty chilly. But it never really gets to freezing level here.

05:20 John Daub: The good thing about March travel is this. If there's a good thing, it's the amount of daylight that you start to get. I've noticed that around the middle of February, it's not really dark at 5 p.m., but in January and December, it is really dark at 5 p.m. It's like nighttime. So you can tell that it's getting brighter. So you're getting more daylight hours. A lot more in the morning where, you know, land of the rising sun. So the sun starts coming up around 6 o'clock in the morning in March, which is good. It was 7 o'clock in the morning in January, February. So this is good. We're starting to get longer and longer days. Of course, June is better because you get 14 hours of daylight to do all of your traveling. But 12 is a lot better than like nine and a half in December. So you better take what you can get here. So the daylight hours start to go up. So this is a good thing with March. But the bad thing with March is like days like today. It's just really bad. It's really miserable. You don't want to go outside.

06:22 John Daub: And Scott from Switzerland just arrived here. And I know this is like an awful day for you to come here. So Scott, thank you for bringing your Swiss winter weather with you. It's really cold out here. Michael Sassano. Aloha John's sweet middle live stream. Hey, got to keep it going here. Been to Japan in June and love the weather. You know, I really do like the rainy season. The great thing about June is that the humidity is not as high as, of course, July and August. But you get the rain, which is really it's a lot nicer in June when it's a little bit warmer than it is today because March rain is miserable. It is. It's like November rain. It's like a Guns N' Roses song. It feels like the world is like nothing's right today. So the cherry blossoms probably like it makes for the snack run. We'll see if we can go to a vending machine here.

07:15 John Daub: The key point of all of this is when you come to Japan, you have to pack different for March than you would pack for April, especially for the cherry blossoms. If they start to bloom around March 20th, you're going to have to pack a lot more. You're going to have to pack your suitcase with layers and layers. Of course, you can go to Uniqlo and get synthetic clothing pretty cheap. It's you get your HeatTech and all that. But they have these micro, these nano, what they call nano down jackets or something. You can get some down jackets. The thing is here, Uniqlo stops selling winter stuff just when you probably need to buy it the most. So you can't find like down jackets and winter stuff at Uniqlo right now or a lot of the stores. It's because they're starting to sell spring stuff. So you're getting like sweaters and things like this. So makes it really hard to buy the things you need in March, which is again, you probably have to pack that kind of stuff. Layers is the way to go. I always have these zip-off shorts. You guys know that they're not cool. They don't look great, but like you're traveling, so you don't really care too much. So the zip-off shorts are great. You can make pants out of them. So usually that has me covered. Jeans works pretty good. So you get your lowers covered here. Maybe a pair of long johns or long underwear, or a second layer underneath there might be useful. You can make them as pajamas. Then you get into the HeatTech stuff and you want to have a base layer and then you can have a sweatshirt and then you can have a t-shirt and then you can have a jacket and then you can have another jacket and then take off the layers that you needed and add them when you do. Bring a raincoat. As you saw, it's like 30% of the time it's going to be raining.

09:06 John Daub: And what I know the thing with March showers versus June showers, March showers are like all day events. You can see the sky is gray. It's been raining all day and it's supposed to start. It's going to be really bad with the snow in Niigata and Nagano out in the Sea of Japan side, but it's rain here. So the rain in March, despite it says here eight days out of the month, they're like long rain days. These aren't popcorn showers of the tropical version variety. These are long rain day showers. So it's kind of different than during the rainy season in that light. Although the rainy season, it seems like it's raining all the time, but there are times where the sun will come out. It does break. But packing accordingly is very important. Definitely pack a raincoat. I know that umbrellas are great, but carrying around an umbrella is kind of a pain in the neck. Having a raincoat like a really good one. It's really nice to have. Rain. I think a Gore-Tex or rain waterproof or whatever tech you can get would be very helpful as well because my shoes are wet, but they're going to do okay because these are Gore-Tex shoes. So the rain doesn't get in there. However, if you do go into a puddle and there are lots of them, you will have to suffer because the water gets into your shoes when you have puddles. I do like the puddle hop.

10:24 John Daub: I'll take a couple of questions here. We're going to walk over. I come to this spot on purpose here. So this here. Okay, I think the rain has let off a little bit. Sid P is here. How you doing, Sid? Is the same as always what Miyagi teach win or lose no matter no need to fight anymore. Miyagi-do. These are cherry blossom trees right here and you can see they're like they took one look at the weather today and like nope, I'm not coming out. So there's absolutely no buds on any of the cherry blossom trees and I'll bring you back here in about three weeks. And you're going to see a completely different situation. But you see the rain coming down pretty strong on the water and the canals here in Tokyo. It's just really cold right now. My hand is really cold and that's what makes March so awful. It's the fact that it's a pretty sight, isn't it? It's just it's a miserable time of year because it's cold. It's wet. It's not cold enough to snow in Tokyo, but it's cold enough to make your hands feel like you wish you had a pair of gloves. Oh my gosh. You see they're kind of red there. They're getting a little numb.

11:49 John Daub: Guys, any questions about traveling in March? I think that this is great. Leave me a comment in the comments below as well because I think this is nice. This is a scooter. One of my favorite places to walk in Chuo Ward. The canals are here, so you got some boats that come in off of the Sumida River. There's a lot of old buildings and nagaya (row houses). It's starting to be torn down now because of the earthquake laws. They have to upgrade all of the infrastructure for the big one, which they plan on coming. But there's a really cool retro vibe. And I said I've been here before. Most of the tourists that come to this area, you'll see them having cameras and French guidebooks so you know that they're from France. This is like one of those days where you go to the hot vending machine. And you get a can of coffee. You get a can of coffee and you just put it in your hand and you keep it and you warm up with it. Let's see if I have 100 yen. Oh, I don't, but I have a 500 yen coin.

13:03 John Daub: Thank you, Michael. Thank you, Sid, for the super chat. Thanks, guys. Look at this one with the Pokemon ball. Should I go for that one or should I go with the rainbow blend? What do you guys think? Got five seconds. Pokemon ball or rainbow blend? What do you guys think? Anything? I think I'm going with Pokemon ball. All right. We got everyone's going Pokemon ball. 100 yen coin. That's a sakura blossom, by the way. That's what I was told here. Jason's like rainbow. Too late, Jason. Oh, my gosh. This feels so good. Sorry, Michael. We'll go with the rainbow one next time. Oh, there's the Pokemon. What is it? Ippai. Oh, my goodness. Oh, my hand is tingling from the heat. Oh, my goodness. Oh, my goodness. Is that Eevee? I thought it was Eevee. Oh, Eevee. Okay. I'm like squinting to see the katakana. It's Eevee instead of Eepee. I was like, what? Eepee? Pokemon coffee. A tribute to Tommy Lee Jones.

14:32 John Daub: Oscar, thank you. And also brought to you by Oscar. Thank you, Oscar. Oh, my goodness. It's so cold. All right. So what I want to do right now, I'm going to just take you as a gift because I always do a walk through here when I come to this area. Oh, the postcard club this year, this year is going to be Mito's Kairakuen (Kairaku-en garden), which is famous for the plum blossoms. Kairakuen up in Mito, they're blooming right now. And that's going to be March's postcard. Instead of cherry blossoms this year, I'm going for the plum blossoms. I took some beautiful pictures last year and there's a QR code for the video that corresponds to it. So I take you on site to when I took the picture of the postcard. So it's kind of cool. So thanks. Thanks for the support. Thank you for sharing the link to our wonderful Patreon supporters that make this possible. Seriously. And Goku, thanks for being a member for 57 months. Awesome.

15:44 John Daub: This is an old, you know what's great about the rain, though, despite the fact that I hate the weather right now, it's just really cold. It brings out the colors, the contrast, the darkness of the shrines, the wood. It gets dark. You see on the tree, the bark on the left side wet. It's darker. So there's more contrast to it. I like that with that. All right. I don't know what the signal is going to work here, but we're going to take you in here. Andy and Sharon, love you too. Thanks guys. I'm going to take you down this alley. This is a very famous alley in actually, I think in Tokyo. ASEAN Dragon 456.6. Thank you. And Sid as well. As I take you down this alley, there's a reason why I think most of you know, if you look up, you'll see a tree there. That's significant. It feels like I'm getting peed on. It's like just coming down. So this is a tree. It is a part of the temple here. And this tree is growing in the temple. It's kind of a hidden shrine. I've taken you here before, but I like to walk by it. It smells really good with the incense as well. And you can see the tree in the middle of it all growing in between these nagaya. These old row houses might not be here for much longer. That's another reason why I like to walk around here. I live in Chuo Ward, which is one of the 23 wards of Tokyo. So this would be like my front yard and that would make Ginza like my backyard, I suppose, here.

18:34 John Daub: So there you go. Really chilly here. Sid writes in here. One last thing I hope you watch Karate Kid Legends. I will. Of course I will. And I've already told, I told a lot of people, I said if maybe I'll just write on directly. I said if Ralph Macchio makes a trip to Japan, by all means, Ralph, Mr. Macchio, I guess because you're a little bit older, I gotta meet you. That would be the ultimate, right? But I'll tell you one thing. I watched the Cobra Kai, and the more I watch it, the more I don't really like it. I think it kind of like jumped the shark there. The acting's not that great. The storyline's kind of weird. I think they're kind of pushing it a bit now. The nostalgia's worn off. I think maybe it's time to wind it down. Think it's something new. It's not quite, I just can't get through the new series on Netflix. I can't get through it. It's not interesting enough for me. I think that's an abandoned house. Looks like Creepshow, the one with Stephen King. You guys remember that one from the 1980s? That looks like that house from Creepshow. Taken over by the alien comet that came down there. Interesting house. All right, back to the train station.

20:12 John Daub: All right, guys, have a great day. Thanks. Bye. I'd love to. I bet you the property is pretty expensive here. Here's an ume (plum) blossom. Check it out. That's this month's postcard. The ume blossoms here. Oscar writes in here, can you answer my Patreon question, please? I absolutely will. I'm going to go check out Patreon when I get home. Thanks for that. Do I need to bring a fork for my mom who doesn't use chopsticks? That's not a bad idea. Look, bringing your own utensils is not a bad idea. It's kind of good for the environment. I have in my bag chopsticks that I can reuse and wash, and you never know when you're going to need them. It's kind of good to have, and you don't need to get the bamboo ones for free that they give you, so it's not a bad idea. Or you can get one of those spoon forks that I showed you. I sent them to all my Daimyo Patreon supporters. You get one of those. But it's not a bad idea to bring a fork or a spoon or just a utensil kit with you in Japan, and it's not a bad thing if you need to use them, and you're like, you feel embarrassed because you're not, you ask for a fork, don't feel embarrassed at all because, look, you're a guest here in Japan. You don't live here. It's okay. Tourists, when I first moved to Japan, I was not great at chopsticks. So, by all means, especially if you're over a certain age, or you're under a certain age, kids can't, even Japanese kids don't use chopsticks. Leo can't use them either. So he uses they've got these chopsticks that are attached at the top, so even kids can use them. So Leo has one of those. There's like these kid-friendly chopsticks. But like, you can't mess that up. But by all means, yeah, bring a fork. And it's kind of a good idea. You can get a case for it as well. Japan sells this stuff as well. It's kind of sweet. Eevee coffee is pretty sweet. Training wheel chopsticks. Exactly. That's right.

22:33 John Daub: Is YouTube your main channel? Catherine, this is my live streaming channel. My main channel is youtube.com slash at mark, onlyinjapan. One word. And there's a video, I don't know if it's coming in tonight. I'm waiting for the city of Tokyo to say yes to it. Hurry up. It's been like finished for a very long time. This episode, I believe this will be the thumbnail. This will be releasing soon. It's far west Tokyo. So I hope that comes real soon. I'm going to do another live stream tomorrow when the weather hopefully gets a little bit better. I wanted the weather to be better so I can show you a little bit of Hinamatsuri. This is March 3rd. This is a very special day in Japan. It's kind of for the girls. Hinamatsuri is, you'll see these doll presentations. They're so beautiful. But I got to be honest with you, the Hinamatsuri song, which you're going to hear all over Japan right now, especially in the supermarkets, kind of creepy. Sounds like something from a horror movie to me. And Peso, if you're here, you know if you've seen the Webley stuff, to me, I represented that in some of my older work. Hinamatsuri is kind of scary. It's kind of creepy to me. Hinamatsuri. It doesn't sound like a girl's song. It sounds like a, I'm about to, I'm hiding in your closet and I'm about to eat you.

24:10 John Daub: All right, guys. It's too cold right now. I'm going to go and get some, this is Tsukishima, Yurakucho Line. I'm going to go and get out of here. But if you have any questions about travel in March, this again, just to sum up, the thing with winter is that it's predictable. You bring a jacket, you dress warm. The thing with March is that it is unpredictable. Right now, it is colder than it was any time in February that I can remember. This is as cold, it feels as cold as it was any time in February. But it's March. So it's confusing. And by the end of March, you're going to have to dress like it's almost summer because there's going to be some days where it gets in the 75 degree Fahrenheit or 20 degrees Celsius or so. That's pretty warm. So it's like messes you up. And then a lot of people get sick.

25:01 John Daub: The good thing about the rain, and this is the last point, and this is something that you should recognize about traveling in March. I didn't mention it yet. Darn, I should have in the beginning. Hay fever is off the charts bad right now. The pollen on my balcony is crazy right now. There's pollen all over the place. People in Japan have masks on, not because of influenza or defense. It's because it reduces the amount of pollen that they take and they can breathe easier because of the mask. That's how bad. And Tokyo is the worst of them all. Tokyo is like pollen city. This is a big political issue too because the mayor, every time there's an election, we talk about chopping down trees in western Tokyo where this episode was filmed, by the way, to relieve people of hay fever. But right now is the worst time if you have hay fever because I can't sleep. My eyes are itchy. And I typically never had hay fever in all of my life. But I got it here. My nose is running. My eyes are itchy. I have trouble breathing a little bit at night. I don't sleep well, basically. So we have an air purifier that helps with this. But even with that running, the pollen is all over the place in our house. We can see it. It just builds up in anything that's dark wood or something. So you wipe with a tissue and you're like, whoa. You gotta close the windows. So it's gonna be bad for the next couple of weeks. It starts around February 20th, but it gets pretty bad in the first couple of weeks of March, all the way through March till about April. But there you go. It's the pollen. That's why most people are wearing masks right now. So you'll see them. It's because a lot of Japanese have hay fever. It's just shikata ga nai (it can't be helped). All right, everybody. I'm gonna head home. I'll see you in another episode real soon. Thanks, guys. Mata ne. Thanks for the coffee. It's kind of cold now. I think the rain got in there. Thanks a lot, Eevee.