00:01 John Daub: So here we are in Tokyo Station with the Hokkaido Shinkansen coming in. This is one of the most crowded times in Japan, the summer holiday called Obon, which technically started yesterday. It's running from now, actually technically it starts on the 13th, but a lot of businesses have taken it off. Tuesday is not a holiday government-wise, but a lot of companies just give it off these days. The platform is quite busy. A lot of the trains have come in here.

00:32 John Daub: I'm going to talk about the summer holiday. I'm hesitant to tell you not to come in August because it's a really crowded time of the year. You have to make reservations. All these trains that are leaving are super crowded. If you take a look, this is from the Hayabusa Shinkansen. This is the KiKi building, which is just across the street from Tokyo Station. There's a Tohoku and a Tokaido Shinkansen. You can see on the platform, it's busy. It's really busy. They're waiting on this side for the Hokuriku Shinkansen going to Kanazawa. Make sure you have seat reservations from about August 9th to 18th, I'll say. If you don't, there is a possibility if you're doing non-reserved, you're going to have to stand the whole way.

01:40 John Daub: It gets more comfortable the further from the origin because all the other stations are packed with travelers too, so it's hard to get a seat in non-reserved. Tokyo is your best chance because it's the origin. Now, with that said, the stations are quite busy. A lot of travelers, and I don't fault the tourists for coming here, I guess. Everyone's bringing wheeled suitcases, but over the years, their suitcases keep getting bigger and bigger. And more people are bringing these wheeled suitcases, and it can be quite stressful inside the stations.

02:10 John Daub: I highly recommend that you use the takuhai bin (luggage delivery) services that are available at hotels where they will send your suitcase to the next hotel. And if you do it at around 4 p.m. the day before, it will travel through the night and they get a chance to pick it up. It'll travel through the night and be at your destination the next day. And if it's a little bit further, maybe the day after that. But you could actually schedule when the suitcase will arrive and you can have it in storage for three or four days. And if you're in Tokyo, you can have it in storage for free. That's a little hack that some of you might not know about.

02:40 John Daub: This is outside of Tokyo Station. You can see it's pretty busy. I think it's raining, so a lot of people left yesterday. This is inside the ticket turnstile area. It's not so busy. I think this morning had a lot more people. But it is still pretty busy for an afternoon on a Sunday. Inside the station, it's always kind of chaotic, but at this time, for sure. You can see a lot of people. That's how Japanese travelers don't take very big luggage. They have small, manageable ones. And this is typically what you should be taking on the Shinkansen.

03:12 John Daub: The bigger ones, you're going to need a special oversized bag reservation. I highly recommend that you get those in advance as early as possible. You can't store them behind the seats anymore. Those are reserved for those who have reservations. JR has a rule: if you can't hold your bag over your head, don't take it onto the trains. These are oversized, meaning you got to put these bags on the racks. You can't put it behind and you have to have a reservation for it. Some travelers, Japanese, will help you try to put it up there. But trying to get it down is dangerous. And again, if they're hanging over there at the train stops, suddenly, God forbid, these can actually fall down onto the heads of people because they slide a little bit. You can't lock them into place. That's why oversized bags hanging over are very dangerous, especially these plastic suitcases.

04:15 John Daub: There's a long line of people queued up to get in. So that's what the situation looks like right now. I'm going to quickly run down Obon holiday. We'll start off with the 13th to the 14th: mukaebi (welcoming Obon), families light small fires and lanterns. This is a very deeply religious, rooted in Buddhism holiday. This is about the ancestors, the graves, the dead. We light small fires called mukaebi, lanterns. We offer foods and incense are prepared.

04:50 John Daub: Middle days, main day for family gatherings, visiting graves, holding memorial services. This will be on the 14th this year called nakabon or chunichi. We get down to the 15th, which is okuribi, which is the farewell, the final day. The lanterns are lit. They're used to guide the spirits back to the other world. So I like the idea of Obon with the spirits come and join us for a couple of days. The bon odori (Bon dance) is taking place this coming week, which is going to be great if you're in Japan. Please try to participate. They're very welcoming of guests. It's kind of a fun time. A lot of street food, depending on the area.

05:22 John Daub: And then the 16th is a send-off fire, especially you'll see this in Kyoto with that big dai (great), the "o" symbol burned into the mountain with fire. You can see it on the Kamogawa (Kamo River) in Kyoto. Get there 5:30 p.m. The fires start, I think it's 8 p.m. or 8:30. So it's a good time to see it. So that's Obon holiday. This year, Tuesday is not a holiday, so it's not an official government holiday. So tourists are actually, you won't notice a difference because a lot of the companies will just have an extended holiday. But typically, we'll talk about 2026, which is a six-day block.

06:23 John Daub: But typically, this Tuesday is not a holiday. So governments are open. You can go in and get stuff done if you have to. That stinks to be a government worker, unless you were able to do that. If you're going to take one of your holidays off, like a special day, you probably got to go back to work. Yeah, but some days you get an extended one. Like next year will be six days. 2026 will be the 13th to the 15th. But the 11th is that Tuesday. And then the 12th will probably be given off. So they're going to make it a six-day, including Saturday and Sunday. It's probably a lot better.

06:54 John Daub: Now the bon odori dance in Tokushima. This is maybe the most famous. Tokushima is one of my favorite places in Shikoku. I love it. Kochi, Kagawa, Ehime. I love all of Shikoku. What am I saying? They have a ferry that leaves from Odaiba. It leaves in the evening, gets to Shikoku around 5 a.m. I don't know if they still have that ferry, but I used to take my bicycle and then you could ride around Shikoku Island for Golden Week. But you can do that in the summer. It's quite hot. This festival, though, over a million people go to see it. It's very, very crowded. But if you can snag some tickets, it's the biggest dance party in the world, I think. It's really amazing. Despite the fact that I heard that they have a 50,000 member Obon in Malaysia, which is just insane. Those hats look like hard shell tacos, don't they? The hats are called amigasa (straw hats).

07:51 John Daub: All right, the platform is kind of empty between trains. But you can see across, trains going to Tohoku are quite crowded. They leave less frequently. This is sort of like an in-between time for the trains. This is the Asama. Wow, this is the juseki (reserved seats), the non-reserved was completely packed. And the official holiday does not even start until next Wednesday. I'm telling you, the platforms are more crowded than usual for a Sunday afternoon. Although it seems like it's starting to taper off. When I was here about 30 minutes ago, it was a lot more people. I guess it comes in waves. But the Tokaido Shinkansen platform, I'm at the end of it, but it just lightened up. One just left. So people are starting to come right now.

09:04 John Daub: This is, again, I would avoid this time of year. But it's hard not to. You got to come to Japan whenever you can come to Japan. So the traditional, again, this is a Buddhist-rooted festival that's dedicated to welcoming ancestral spirits. The stuff at home, if you get a chance to do a homestay, it's kind of cool. Participating in a bon odori, anybody can do this. Some are already taking place now. And seeing the lantern release, in particular, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, because of the atomic bombings and the anniversaries, the memorial services that they have, it's also a good time to, they have bon odori at that time as well. I've seen some of the dances. They try to, I think for this time of year, for Nagasaki, it's a good time to do that. And Nagasaki, Hiroshima, it's a little bit different. I'm sure that the spirits, especially after 80 years, it's a tough time for those cities at this time of year. People lost a lot of ancestors.

10:03 John Daub: If you're interested, I have a video that was released a couple of days ago. It's doing pretty well, I guess. But I'm sure it's going to pick up over time. It's a really deep look at the hypocenter and the survivors. It's a really deep look at the hypocenter experience. What they saw, what they heard, what they smelled, what they felt on the day of the bombing and the days and months and years after. It's a really in-depth look. It gets a little graphic, but no graphic images, I don't think. There's lots of them on the internet of burns and stuff like that. But I want you to have a greater understanding of Nagasaki because Hiroshima gets a lot of attention. We sometimes don't give enough attention to what happened in Nagasaki.

10:50 John Daub: Nagasaki's plutonium-based nuclear weapon was 40% more powerful than Hiroshima's. But the geography of Nagasaki created more death in the center, but was actually protected people on the outside a little bit more. Not so much from the radiation, but it got into the air. And it's a tough episode to watch, but I think it's an important one. It's one of these things where I had to make it now because we were losing too many hibakusha (atomic bomb survivors). And the timing, there's no more time left to do this kind of an episode. Sasahara-san, who was in my Hiroshima video two years ago, passed away this spring. She was 93 when I interviewed her and 94 when she passed away, according to the newspaper. I thought she was 94 when I interviewed her, but I'm not sure. But she passed away in April and I was saddened by the news. I found out about it about two days ago.

11:53 John Daub: You know, she said a prayer and I know her daughter, who has written a book about the atomic bombing, you know, maybe I'll plug her book. It's in Japanese. It's about a cello, I think. I have a copy of it. It's a pretty powerful book. So, yeah, that's tough news when I heard that Sasahara-san passed away. She was a conductor who was 14 years old at the time of the bombing. 72 hours after the bombing, she was on the first streetcar working again. It's a significant story. And she was able to talk about it in the episode. So, that's quite significant.

12:37 John Daub: Oh, the Shinkansen is here. Check it out. I was talking to the Shinkansen, snag did it. A lot more people started to walk up here. So, I'm at the end, so you're not going to get as many people. Nagasaki is a much more relaxed experience for those looking to get into the history, to remember, to have that kind of an experience. It's an enlightening experience, I think. Nagasaki has cruise ships that come in, but when the cruise ships are out, it feels really empty. So, I thought that that was, you know, it's not, they're not really suffering from overtourism in the same way as Hiroshima is right now.

13:25 John Daub: Again, if you're traveling, make sure you have reservations for the seats on the Shinkansen. If you're driving on the highways, be prepared for mega traffic, especially at the end of this, as everybody comes back on Sunday. It's crazy. Peter von Gomm once told me, and he's in Nagano, I believe. Peter von Gomm once told me that he was in a traffic jam from Nagano to Tokyo. That's like a hundred miles of traffic. All right. That's a long freaking way. It's just one big traffic jam at that time of year. So, if you are driving, this is the worst time to drive. Golden Week is also tough and so is Obon, the Shogatsu holiday, but these three just wicked, wickedly bad.

14:03 John Daub: In fact, Sunday night, any Sunday night is really bad, every Sunday night, but he told me once he had an RV and he was camping with the family out in, I think it was Nagano. And he came back and it was, I'm glad that he gassed up the car because when you're in a traffic jam for a hundred miles, it's like a hundred and fifty kilometers or something, you better have that tank gassed up or else cars are probably, as a rule, they come in very frequently because you're going to be stuck. So whenever you travel during the holiday period, even if your tank's like three quarters full, fill it up before you get onto the road. And you don't want to be hitting a traffic jam with a mostly empty tank snaking across. Usually you're okay, but just keep it in mind.

15:01 John Daub: All right, guys, that's all I got for you. Sorry, make sure you let me know if the mic's not good at the beginning of the live stream. I do have a wireless mic, so the mic should be as clear as you hear right now. Joy. I love you, Joy. I'll fix the typos after the stream. But until then, take care, guys. Have a safe day. I'll be back maybe tonight with another live stream. I want to talk about other things that are going on in Japan. There's a lot of stuff, especially with summer travel. No reason to apologize. I'm just giving you a hard time because it's funny. But take care. I'll see you in the next live stream. Matane. You know what to do. Go check out the Nagasaki video. Leave me a comment if you haven't already. I really appreciate it. It says that the subscribers of the channel were the ones that didn't watch this. I guess maybe it's too sad of a topic, but I do appreciate it. Thanks, guys. See you in the next stream. Bye-bye.