Taking a Bus Deep into Rural Japan During Winter

Taking a Bus Deep into Rural Japan During Winter

slip and slide. [Music] Go for me. Yes. Hello again from beautiful Nagono City. Today we’re heading off the beaten path into the mountains with zero expectations. This was on a total whim, but oh man, did this place deliver. We found this spot while poking around on Google Maps. A place called Toga Kushi. It’s home to three shrines, an upper, middle, and lower. All we’d seen were photos of towering cedar trees and quiet temples. But like I mentioned in the last video, some last minute changes gave us a couple extra days in Nago. So we figured why not chase a hidden gem. So we jumped on a beautiful hourong bus ride and off we went. We are here in a beautiful mountaintop little village and I believe this is a little trail which we will have beautiful views of mountain tops and snowy stuff. This is the direction we must head. Must say that is a glorious gate. Let’s just let’s just take this in a moment. Elon must be like, “Lucky we put on our snow walking equipment.” I did forget my Tootsie gloves though. Look at this s dude. Why you got lips like that though? I guess we upstairs. We ascend to our destiny. How long is this trail? Not long. I thought it goes all the way. It said 40-minute walk to that big shrine that we’re after. I think that was from a different stop. Are we at the shrine that we’re after? Yeah. Is this the shrine that we’re after? It’s like up the road somewhere. All right, hear me out. You hear me? That’ll be me in t-minus 2 days. So keen for that. What a pathway. What a pure. I like coming to these little mountain top things. It’s so peaceful. And I’m not sure if you saw in a little B-roll beforehand, but out the window of the bus, there was a [ __ ] mountain just over there. And I want to see it and take photos of it. It was so detailed and the weather is so clear, RN is tough. Jesus Christ. Hopefully we don’t have to pay for any tickets or anything. Oh, wait. Is that it? Are we here? I don’t know. So, this is it. This is what we traveled all this way for. I’m actually certain that there’s a path you can take all the way down. Like, it would make sense. It’s so bulbous. Cool. All right, that’s it. Catch you in the next one. Gotcha. Nah, I think there is a path on Google Maps. When we initially decided to come here, this definitely wasn’t the place that we set out to come to. What was that place called again? This is the end result. I think you you can do it either way, I guess. So, you like there’s three there’s like an upper, middle, and a lower shrine. And we’ve started at the upper shrine, and I guess we’re going to walk down to the lower shrine. And it seems like you walk through a really cool forest type setting. Like you see all these trees around us? I think there’s just a big long air room. I need to stop saying that. I think there’s a big long room. I keep saying room. I think there’s a big long [ __ ] the like pathway through all the nicely neatly organized [ __ ] off trees. And uh yeah, I guess that’s very Zeldaesque, so I’m keen to see it. Either way, it’s really just nice to get out of the hotel room. It’s a really crazy contrast between the hustle and bustle of the metropolitan Japan yada yada yada. What do you like audio book type deal? My name’s William Sherwood and this is rural Japan. [Music] Best thing about Japan is coming up right here. Your family, what’s cooking good looking? Wow. Everything with snow on it just makes it look 10 times darker. Yeah, that’s a word. Nice work, Japan. [Music] All right, we are on the way through this scenic [ __ ] driveway. Oh, look at the treachery beneath. Too ambitious. Too ambitious. If there was like any black eyes, we would not be able to see it and we would just slip here for eternity. By the way, guys. Oh, another one. Ha. Oh, another one. Look at the scenes, though. Some like we’ve been here for just over 3 weeks now. And I I I stop and think sometimes like I kind of don’t even how do I say this without sounding like a plonk. Um we’ve been here long enough now that seeing this [ __ ] on the walls sometimes just goes like past me and I don’t really appreciate that we’re in a [ __ ] tundra. Speaking of tundra, this is the part. It’s legit a slip and slide. A road, by the way. A road. Yeah, roads. Where we’re going, we don’t need roads. Oh, [ __ ] I’m going take slipping and sliding. All right, I’m just going to stay sensible. We are literally just in a village. Look at this. You see mama bear over there shoveling away, doing God’s work. Apparently, this is the end of the road for me. Oh my god, dude. There’s like a kilometer of snow on each side, bro. We are magicked. No one has been here ever. See, I cleaned the [ __ ] sake. I guess it’s down there. Onwards. This is more what I was anticipating. Bit less road, bit less village, bit more path. Just stood here admiring the vastness of the snowscape. And there’s a Flintstones trap above me. I’m going to get clotted. Watch. One step off to the right. One step off to the left. Not even the middle safe. [Music] I’ve legit fallen into a creasse. Okay, this is Oh my god. Yeah, this is good fun. There’s just random potholes of just 10 m creasses you fall into. Jesus. How is this here? Where’s the Where’s the path? You just have to walk through this door. I got this. [Music] [Laughter] I really want to walk on it, but go on. I dare you to just snow, Angel. Oh, no. My jeans get soaked. I can look. It’s so powdery. I could just [ __ ] That is definitely not a sign you want to see. Strategy for this. practice like make yourself. Yeah, that’s what I did. No, you’ve got to you got to like want out to them. As we wander through this potentially bearinfested forest, here’s a little history on Toga Kushi. The shrines here are linked to an ancient myth. When the sun goddess hid in a cave in Kyushu after her brother caused chaos, the world went dark. To lure her out, the gods performed some wild dances. And when she peaked out, one of them flung the stone door of the cave so far that it landed here in Nagana. That’s where Togakushi, meaning hidden door, gets its name. I didn’t know any of this until after the trip, but yeah, it’s wild that this spot is linked to Takiho Gorge, which, fun fact, ended up being tied as my favorite place in Japan alongside Yamada Temple. That video is already out. Go check it out after this one. Go. If a bear shits in the woods and no one is around to film it, is the Pope Catholic? And I’m not here to [ __ ] a spider. Echo wheels never echo. Walmart target. We need a 700 car car park in here. Like an oil refer. We’ve arrived to our destination. Wow, that walk was [ __ ] insane. Every every time the snow fell from the trees, we were like, “Yep, that’s a bear. We’re going to get killed.” Nevertheless, look at what we’ve got in store. That is impressive. Wow. We’re the only ones here. Did you see that? It fell. Trust me. Oh, do you reckon everyone knows about this? Surely. There’s a [ __ ] Wait, that looks off limits. Oh god, that looks sketchy ass. It’s so cool how you can just stumble across [ __ ] like this. If there was no Google Maps, how the did people find this beforehand? I’m sure travel back in the day must have felt so much more like, “Oh my god, I’ve accomplished this.” But it would have been so difficult to find something so rare, like to find anything. Like even catching the trains would be so difficult. Yeah. And something that’s not like a common tourist spot like this in like a quieter city. There was no like trip advisor or anything as well to tell you that this [ __ ] exists. I see why people just go toes. All right. Someone built that. That looks old. Someone built that. How does like the wood hold up in these webs? Well, I suppose it’s only 600 years old max. I mean 300 years old. Aren’t these all Maji era? I don’t really I don’t know. Anyway, the like underwater ships and [ __ ] like they still hold up and they’re from like wood is good. I heard this from Stefan Milo Milo and Flint Dibble. Can’t forget Flint Dibble. Dib bus. We’re team Flint Dibble, by the way. Flint Dibble. [ __ ] Graeme Hancock. Let’s start that. [ __ ] Graham Hancock. Okay, I’m gonna take some photos and then we’ll be on our merry way. Just quickly, remember how I was saying there was the like it was lined with cedar trees or whatever these trees are and it was like super aesthetic. I was just thinking that ain’t here. But it actually is. It is this colossal ice skating rink. But in the sum where like all the Google Maps photos are in the summer, but yeah, we we definitely came up the back streets way. Well, I think we actually No, there was that one guy that passed us. Yeah, I think we did it reverse though. I think some people would start here and then go so you walk up the stairs first, do that walk all the way up to that top sh but we started at the top. Another human being. Hey, go away. For what it’s worth, it is currently Thursday the 27th of February. Feb February. February. So, it is sunny. The temperature is 9°. Like, wo 9° 5°. Sorry. We We’ve got it pretty lucky because the light conditions are so beautiful right now. Like, look at that. Seeing some actual shadows. It’s like we’ve got blue skies and that the snow like the snow is melting melting. We’ll propose a pretty interesting concept just before. Like there is so much water potential here. The runoff must be absolutely insane or is it just perma snowy? Like this [ __ ] would take so long to melt. Right here that is a wall of potential water. It’s at least like what a square meter is a ton of water. So that’s probably at least like a lot of tons. You know, that would take so long to melt and the amount of water would be crazy. Imagine here in the like dead spring. The the waterfalls would be gushing. Oh, we’ve got more walk. Dude, this walk has been the It’s not every day that a person from Perth, Western Australia, where it’s bound to be 40° every [ __ ] day gets to walk through a snowy [ __ ] forest. Any This is what we got. This is what we’re dealing with. Beautiful, but also Oh, wait. We’re vibing. Confidence. Woo. I love this place. The mission now, find a way to see those mountains perfectly. That sounded so relaxing. Wicked. Okay, we have found we found the bottom. That looks kind of buns. Not good. Not great. Oh wow. Yeah. Deo still. What a stunning place to be. Look at that. Sometimes you just got to look backwards to reveal the true gems. So mountainous. That one. That one. But they’re not the mountains I want to take a photo of. Trust me, these ones are bangers. I’m manifesting that we see them. Frost me, daddy. On the bus ride in, I saw this insane view. There was like jagged peaks in the distance framed by pine trees. I knew I needed to get that shot. So instead of taking the bus back home from the closest stop, I convinced Will to hike back up the fairly steep hill with me to get the shot of my dreams. Long walk. Apologies, sir, for making you do this. Oh, I thought that was a love bend. Uh-oh. Yes, I did it. Thank [ __ ] that was correct. That would have been so annoying if I led real world the wrong way. H might need to give my legs a bit of a rest first. Feel the trap might be to run up there. Is it standable? Whoa. Wow. Just wow. Do you know where we are? No. I jumped on my knees down there. This is the hill. This has got to be a good photo to make it worth it. Whoa, that sounds amazing. Oh, that’s a creasse. Did you go backwards or forwards? We did it. That made it all worth it. I hope we made it finally after a fairly decent trek back to where we started. But we’re kind of stuck in between two buses at the moment. Unfortunately, our quest, well, my quest to get that photo set us back and we missed the early bus. Anyway, we’re back here. It’s beautiful, beautiful place. One thing I didn’t notice before, look at how [ __ ] huge that tree is. It must be holy. Holy tree. And there’s that one too in the distance over there. Let’s have a vending machine. Beer. Yeah. Until then, we shall wait for the bus. That about wraps up all the interesting stories from around Naga. Like I’ve said, we were here for way longer than we needed to be. As we were heading into the mountains for 11 days for some snowboarding and a boogie at snow machine with a bunch of friends from back home. I thought it might be a good idea to rank all the resorts around Hakuba as a complete beginner because God knows I was thrown into the deep end. Yeah, you’ll definitely want to watch that one. So, subscribe and I’ll catch you on the flip side. Hopefully shredding some absolute gnar down the mountain. Thank [ __ ] that was the most uncomfortable bus ride on my neck, my back, my [ __ ] and my crack all sore. the foot. I was uh stuck between a rock and a hard place. Aka my knees didn’t fit in the in the seat. I just perched up on this little Asian lady. Oh, dude. And I was sweating and I took my jacket off. Yeah, I know.

This week we embark on a pretty unforgettable journey from Nagano, into the jaw-dropping Japanese countryside, as we hop on a random bus and discover the hidden gems of Togakushi.

From exploring rural Japanese village life, to discovering ancient shrines, this quest immerses you in the natural beauty, history and culture home to this enchanting region at the foothills of the Japanese Alps.

Whether you’re interested in off-the-beaten-path travel in Japan, keen on cultural landmarks, or simply looking for 20 minutes of relaxing backcountry travel loaded with breathtaking scenery, this trip to Togakushi is packed with inspiration for your adventure.

Togakushi is famous for its three mystical shrines, beautiful ancient cedar forests, and authentic rural charm. Despite us only finding two of the shrines, I think this place is close to perfect if you want to get a feel for Japanese life outside the big cities… and in the winter, this place is a true winter wonderland.

Timestamps:
00:00 – a bus into the mountains
00:47 – togakushi middle shrine (chusha)
04:02 – exploring a village
05:22 – a path through the forest
08:54 – togakushi lower shrine (hokosha)
13:49 – a photography mission
15:43 – final thoughts

#Togakushi #Nagano #TogakushiShrine #JapanTravel #HiddenJapan #OffTheBeatenPath #TravelVlog #RuralJapan #JapanAdventure