Scarecrows in The Countryside of Japan | Visit an Onsen While in Japan

We drove through the countryside of Japan while heading to Yuki Onsen near Hiroshima. We came across a cool village outlined with over 170 scarecrows along the street.

Yuki Onsen:
https://www.yuki-lodge.jp/en/index.html

I am an American (of Mexican descent) living and working in Japan. My wife of 32 (plus) years is from Japan. We bought a vacant or empty house “Akiya” in the countryside of Japan near Iwakuni, Yamaguchi Prefecture for $35,000 (5 million Yen as of August 2022). The property consists of a 2-story house built in 1975, small guest house, large 2 car garage, storage building, and 3/4 acres of land with many fruit trees.

As very common when purchasing an Akiya in Japan, the personal belongings of the previous owner were still in the house. It took multiple trips to the local recycle center to dispose of all the property.

The grounds were overgrown with many weeds and vines. This will take a while to get under control, but it is looking much better around the property, and I think the neighbors are happy to see us cleaning up.

This traditional Japanese house also features a gorgeous Japanese Garden in much need of cleaning up and bringing it back to its glory. I am still working on the garden, but it already looks stunning under a beautiful maple tree and huge decorative stones.

We performed an extensive renovation in the entire house. We focused on keeping traditional Japanese features such as the engawa, shoji doors, ranma, shikkui, tatami room, but incorporated modern features making a very comfortable house for years to come. Walls, ceilings, floors were insulated. New modern kitchen, toilets and bathroom units were installed. We installed a wood burning cast iron stove (Quadra-Fire, Explorer II). New electrical throughout the entire house and guest house. Double pane windows and doors installed and much more.

#japan #japancountryside #japanesevacanthouse #akiya #traditionaljapanesehouse #ruraljapan #onsen #japanhotspring

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Other videos of our Akiya traditional Japanese house renovation:
https://youtube.com/@cocolenchojapan

Contact:
cocolenchojapan@gmail.com

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Facebook:
Coco Lencho Japan
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100088736035119

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Akiya Bank for my area near Iwakuni City and Hiroshima City: Miwa Town in Yamaguchi
https://iwakuni-iju.jp/akiyajoho

Miwa Town Information:
https://iwakuni-iju.jp/miwa.html

Dave Olson’s website:
Dave provides many links and information Akiya and Komika purchase.

“Akiya” abandoned, cheap/free* houses in Japan / annotations, resources, riffs, musings, stories

At Akiya Sumai you can search for vacant houses around Japan.
https://akiya.sumai.biz

At Ie Ichiba there is a Bulletin board to search vacant houses / Akiya Houses and old buildings in Japan
https://www.ieichiba.com

Other Useful Links:

Can A Foreigner Buy Property In Japan?

https://www.athome.co.jp/
https://www.kurasapo.net/
https://www.koryoya.com/
https://www.homes.co.jp/akiyabank/
http://www.inakanet.jp/index.html
https://www.akiya-athome.jp

We are about maybe I don’t know about 45 minutes from our house and uh we are heading towards an onen Yuki onen specifically and uh I had no plans of uh recording or taking any video today I figur I’d go ahead and take a a day off

But as we’re driving through we drove through this really cool uh Little Village so I figured I’d kind of go ahead and uh take some video this is some of the uniquenesses of Japan folks check this out this guy right here there’s little manney and there’s a

Couple more down the road and actually I’m not sure if this is the case right here in this particular town but uh there are many uh towns in Japan because of the declining population that they put up these stuff uh people manes whatever to kind of I don’t know just to

Increase the population whatever but since we saw this as we’re driving down I figured i’ go ahead and stop and uh share with you guys uh uh again the beauty of the countryside of of Japan we are probably about 30 minutes or so from Hiroshima Hiroshima City um and uh but

Look at this beautiful place here in the valley the clean water looks like down there there’s some carp um it’s kind of hard for y’all to see them they’re uh swimming around the clear water and then we came across a couple of fishing spots uh let me see let me get a little

Bit closer to this guy right here and I see another one way over there too so I’m pretty sure they’re scattered all over the place but I mean this is just this is just too funny folks uh just kind of cool and let me keep on walking

Down this way wow just gorgeous right now it’s um let see January 6th and uh it’s a little cold so it does snow around here but uh thankfully today there’s no snow and uh they said my wife and I we figured we just go ahead and uh

Soak the bones and the onen real quick and we’ve never been to this particular on but uh it is um a Reno which is a basically they have a open air onon as well and then it’s actually a hotel and uh I think uh I was reading the history

About it and I I’ll go ahead and uh provide the link below and some information I think it was founded in uh 12200 or something like that um that just I was kind of O this quite windy so my apologies if it’s uh quite noisy but

I’ll check that out it’s really cool so yeah let’s go ahead and uh make it towards uh Yuki onen and again this was totally unpropped too oh and also by the way what I want to say thank you to everyone for continuously watching us um

We kind of started about a year ago and this morning uh we went over 2,000 subscribers so I’m just tickled to death that anyone would even bother to listen to what we have to say and share but uh we have the unique opportunity of living in Japan the countryside and just really

Want to share and also the process of us renovating our vacant house or uh what is also known as Nakia here in the countryside so yeah there’s a whole lot more to follow folks so please if you like what you see please hit subscribe like and share these are the type of

Trips that we uh want to continue doing doing and uh as I posted in a video before um next month we’re going to our RV show in uh Chiba near Tokyo it’s really huge RV Show So eventually we want to uh buy an RV and do a lot of

Road trips like this because my dream is to literally like for example this spot right here you can if you really want to you can just stop and and park right there overnight and here in Japan is perfectly legal and safe all right let’s let’s go ahead and continue going

Towards uh Yuki onen we just came from that direction you know literally what was maybe an A Minute from here and little little bit up the road there is a old lady kind of like uh cleaning in cleaning onto this uh reiling and looking over the river and then I just

Had to stop and take a video of this but check this out there’s a old couple right here you’re fishing I’m sorry but this is just too much for me oh my goodness this look at that whoever is the creative person over here just man I mean again these are

Some of the cool things about Japan look at that and and as we were driving up we were both debating was like no those are manes those are man Keys uh but therefore for men I thought they were real people too at a distance look at this oh Jesus but look at the

Beauty oh and the water so clear look at that oh jeez oh look at that that poor house over there is kind of uh leaning over but as we’re driving down but look at these beautiful old houses beautiful countryside houses here in Japan say hello to my new [Applause]

Girlfriend uh oh jeez that is just too much that is the funniest thing ever the the things that just uh that that just tickle me to death let’s check out this guy over here let’s see what his face looks like hey buddy hey smile he’s smiling too oh my God he’s

Smiling oh my goodness oh oh God that is just too much that is just too funny oh I’m sure we’re going to come across a couple more and we’re literally about uh less than 10 minutes away from the Yuki onen so we need to get going all right so here we are we

Just arrived to the uh Yuki onen Lodge it looks like it’s that place right over there in the nice big parking spot but really beautiful place here in the mountains and uh looks like there’s a shuttle coming from Hiroshima as well well so if you do visit this area uh

Looks like you can take the shuttle and uh come over here and spend the night or just a day uh even though it’s a lodge or a hotel you can still just come and uh come and use it for you know a few hours and actually I was looking on the

Website you can like rent a room for I think was like for 3 hours if you just want to rest in between the soaking in the onen let’s go ahead and check out this uh this sign right here look what they have Yuki Town sight scene information so all kinds of of

Information all different waterfalls wow look at that one two three at least and oh oh that’s what that’s what we just saw the scarecrows in Woodland Community that’s what we just saw a minute ago so about 170 real scarecrows lined up around W that’s pretty cool so next time we need to come

And look at this a little bit closer oh look at this really nice so many more things to see oh I was looking at this online this morning to uh bath house um and uh it’s a private onon so you can uh you and your wife or significant other you can

Come and uh kind and spend some private time in there too oh and we H minute ago we we drove by we saw this sign of this weeping cherry tree looks like 80-year-old weeping Cher tree uh campgrounds wow all kinds of places yeah and this is again it was

About an hour from our place but um uh a very very narrow road unfortunately I was not uh videotaping that but uh here you go folks so again if you uh if you’re in the area come and check it out the Meanwhile we’re going to go get some onen

Time here you go folks this is also look at this this is an outdoor onen just for your feet and uh totally free so this is is literally right next to the parking lot so you can just kind of come in here and oh that’s nice and warm look at that oh so Pretty well that’s really cool so we’re inside the the Yuki Lodge the hotel we got to go up to the second floor real Quick oh so right here in the hotel resting area it kind of looks like they have a bunch of uh little placards and pictures of uh local businesses in this area that’s really cool I really like that it’s I like uh being able to support um local businesses wherever you go

Yeah definitely really really recommend uh you guys come and check out this uh place here in the Yuki Lodge again about maybe 30 45 minutes from hos shiman and and uh again looks like right here is where there’s a bus stop where you canot take the

Bus um really nice and clean they had like that little jacuzzi type and the cold and you can and outside you can just kind of go out and uh uh kind of cool off while you’re in the hot water and actually the the outside the roten B was uh looking out towards those

Mountains there in the background so it’s really cool all right so we’re going to go ahead and uh get something to eat because after that you get really hungry so let’s go ahead and find a place to eat okay we’re going to try to go into this restaurant here right behind me

Looks like they have some K and ramen in this uh little local place actually kind of cool looks like uh someone’s older house or actually steal their house they probably live upstairs or in the back let’s go ahead and get in there and uh let’s see uh

What kind of delicious food we can find