Expert Tour Guide shares his 2 all-time FAVOURITE secret spots in JAPAN that you’ve got to VISIT!
[Music] What would you say is the most underappreciated thing in Japan that’s worth seeing? Maybe for you personally. You’re asking me to like give out the secrets now. Um, no. No. Maybe it can be in general. Maybe you can be like, “Hey, it’s nature. You know, check out you don’t have to give us like your favorite spots.” Yeah. It’s okay. It’s okay. Cuz it book with book with Mike. Look, this is him. You have to book with him. It helps spread out the tourism, which we want. You know, people people think about like, oh, like I don’t want to give up my secrets, but realistically, if we do that, the tourism is not going to be as concentrated anymore. So, for me, it’s still a really touristy place, but people go to Hiroshima to Miaima Island, which is the Is that the art? The Itsukushima Shrine is the big shrine in the water. Um, you never been there? No. Okay. So, people go there and they go to the Itsukushima Shrine, which is great. It’s a shrine. It’s It’s on the water because they used to not be allowed to live on that island like a thousand years ago. And uh they built the shrine on the water because they were never entering the land to go pray. Um so that’s what the Isukushima shrine is for. You go through a Tory gate by boat on the water. Not nowadays, but you used to. Um but what people don’t know is a slight walk up the hill. It’s like a 10-minute walk up the hill. There’s a temple called Daisho Inn and it’s phenomenal. You The railing has these drums on them that you spin and they uh have a sutra on them. I’m pretty sure it’s the heart sutra if I remember correctly. So you run your hand up them and you spin them all on the way up and now it’s imparting the heart sutra in your life which is the most popular sutra basically in Buddhism in Japan. Um so it’s a fun activity and then we ring the bell to you know notify of our respectful entrance and then we go and in the basement of uh the first temple building um on the right side you can do a pilgrimage um there’s I think it’s 44 temples they have pictures of the body sata under the basement but it’s pitch black so you can’t see anything and you just feel the walls while you walk through and see these pictures of these bodhis sata in the basement. Uh and then we go up the hill and there’s another sutra railing. Um and then the very top of Daishoin there is a temple uh located to uh or dedicated to Kobadashi which is one of the most famous uh Buddhist monks in Japanese history. He uh brought Shingan Buddhism to Japan from China and he created the Shikoku 88. Are you familiar with that pilgrimage? Yeah. So 88 temples. So Kobadashi is my dad wants to do that. Really? Yeah. So you can go and below this temple you can go inside and they have I think it’s like 1,250 lanterns hanging on the ceiling all lit up with the 88 statues for each of his temples. Uh and it’s just like all these things that you can do in that little area of Daisho and and plus a 500 statue Jizel garden. Um Jesus statue garden. So, you walk through this garden and there’s 500 Jesus statues with air aprons and stuff. It’s just phenomenal, right? Like, it’s such a cool place. Uh, and it’s very interactive. You get to see a lot of things and it’s not busy. It’s not busy. Wow. It’s my favorite place. Anytime I I have a tour that takes me down there, I tell my customers like the one thing you guys should do with me this tour is go to Daoen. And it’s not on the itinerary because I also am a subcontractor for a big company. Um, so we when I do their tours, uh, it’s not included because no one knows about it. It’s secret. Giving us straight up gold. Yeah. Yeah. Straight up gold. Yeah. And then the other thing is, um, Takaido Road in Hakone. Mhm. I’ve been to Hakone once. Yeah. So, uh, do you know what the Tokaido road is? No. So, whenasu when Tokugawa was Yeah. He created five highways to help people bring rice back to Tokyo because that was taxed back then, right? They were taxed in rice. Cool. Cool. So the Yeah. So the daimo had to bring this rice by horse and carriage to Tokyo. And so he made highways to help it go faster. And he put checkpoints on them so they could get their papers checked. And uh the Tokaido highway went from uh Tokyo to Osaka and it went through the mountains of Hakone. So there’s actually um they call it the old Takaido road right beside Lake Ashi. So you can actually walk down the road. And when they made the road, they planted Japanese cedar trees. And now those trees are still there. They’re like 400 years old and you you can’t you you need like four people to fit your arms around them. It’s incredible. And you just stand there on this road and you’re just like, “Wow.” Um there’s a there’s a road right beside it. So you just hear buses and stuff go by, but I love taking people there because it’s a huge part of the history. It’s a why why Hakone is is where it is. Like the Takaido road went through Aone, which means they needed shops and vendors and you know people there to accommodate for people traveling to Tokyo. Um and yeah, it’s cool. And just seeing the trees that big. I don’t know anywhere else where there’s like an old growth forest in this area. Like I just it’s so and Mike the passion is shining through.
I force professional tour guide Mike (from Landmark and Legends,) to give up his secrets and share his two all-time favourite places in Japan. They include the Tōkaidō road in Hakone and the Daishō-in buddhist temple in Hiroshima. Check out the full convo on the pod for more!
#japantravel #japan #traveljapan #traveltips
Landmark and Legends website:
https://landmarkandlegends.com/
Contact Mike on Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/landmark_and_legends/
Tokyo Hangout on Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/tokyo_hangout/
Listen to TOKYO HANGOUT on Spotify:
Listen to TOKYO HANGOUT on Apple podcasts:
SMART COOKIES podcast:
https://www.youtube.com/@UCD_qrMnNdsITCKe7IsQ0M_Q
AloJapan.com