One Incredible Month of Traveling in Japan

One Incredible Month of Traveling in Japan

I feel like I learned a lot from Japan. But I think that maybe the biggest takeaway that I have had actually comes from the Tory gates. When you see a Tory gate, it’s signifying that you’re entering a sacred space. What’s so cool about those Tory gates is that they’re not just at the entrances of temples. They’re just in wild spaces in the middle of nature, out in fields. They’re out leading to the ocean. I just fell in love with this idea of this like visual reminder that outside is sacred. [Music] [Music] So, this trip came up very last minute. Getting towards the tail end of the year, we were expecting our truck to be on a boat to somewhere else. As the year was dra dragging on, after multiple attempts, there was all of these reasons why that wasn’t happening. And as kind of we are getting into the fall, Owen and I both had been really looking forward to being in South America with our truck because I think that we were both feeling very hungry for some culture shock. And then we just like realized we’re like, well, wait a minute. Like we can just leave. We don’t have to. It’s actually insane to think that the only way that we could have that experience was to take the truck. So when we kind of had this realization, it opened up a world of possibilities and we knew that it just needed to be abroad. We landed on Japan for a number of reasons. Owen is half Japanese, so Japanese culture is obviously something that is alive and well in his sphere of knowledge and has always been a place that he has wanted to see. But Japanese food is amazing, the art, the culture. There were so many reasons why we wanted to check out Japan. [Music] My initial impressions of Tokyo, it’s a pretty intimidating city. We got off the plane and immediately on to the train system at rush hour. It was so packed and so overwhelming and so confusing. But I think that something that is so interesting about Tokyo is that for instance where our Airbnb was, it was a really quiet neighborhood. And then if you just walked a couple blocks over, there were all of these big kind of like prominads that had a lot of restaurants and stores and then like just beyond that was a thousand-year-old temple. And it’s just so interesting to me how layered all of it is. [Music] Don’t watch. [Music] Hallelujah. [Music] Hallelujah. [Music] for posterity’s sake. [Music] There’s crispy skin in here. Oo, it’s so salty and good. So, we missed our first bullet train to our next destination, which was Kyoto. Um, and thankfully, we’ve realized because of that mistake that you actually have 4 days to use those tickets. So, happy for that lesson early on, but we actually missed the train because there was a crepe that we wanted to try. a matcha crepe led to a coobe beef skewer that we saw that was across the way and got we just got a little bit distracted uh by the skewered meats. But also I feel like that was worth it because that skewer made me cry. Actual tears. It was so good. Um the lady who made it was stoked. It was really good. Very much. Oh my god. It’s just unlike any uh beef I’ve ever had. It’s so tender. I thought I had an understanding for Japanese cuisine and I didn’t. It’s so delicate and beautiful and understated and complex and thought out like so much is in Japan. It’s beautiful. [Laughter] [Music] That’s such a fun texture. It’s so good. Breakfast to champions right here. Yeah. So, first uh Japanese Wagu experience caused us to miss our bullet train. [Music] Kyoto immediately felt very different to us. Kyoto kind of feels like it’s nestled in this bowl. So, you can have your like city and quiet town life all in one. But then you also outside of all of that, you can really quickly be in nature. [Music] [Applause] [Music] We decided to go down to Uji to see the biodto temple and shrine. There’s a replica of that same temple on the north shore of Hawaii and Owen’s grandparents are interred there and we visited them and it’s a really beautiful place. Um it’s very very special and so it felt really important to go to the original one and man is it something to behold. to be here in Japan, this place that we’ve never been to before, but to go to a place that felt very familiar and almost a little bit like we were returning home. [Music] What are you doing? [Music] She’s doing [Music] [Applause] [Music] After Kyoto, we took a short train down to Nara. The big draw to Nara is the sacred deer. Oh boy. [Music] The deer of Nara were thought to have brought in gods and so they’re considered to be sacred messengers. And so they have long been protected and fed and cared for by the assorted temples of the area initially, but now they make these really fun little deer crackers that you can purchase for 200 yen and you can give them to the deer. But because the Japanese people consider them sacred, these deer have been bowed to for centuries. And so those deer have now been conditioned to ask for a deer cracker by bowing. [Music] [Music] [Music] people. What makes the temple at Miaima so unique is first of all Miaima it’s an island and it’s off the coast of Hiroshima so you’re looking back at downtown Hiroshima. The temple itself is 50% of the day out over the water. There’s a big tidal shift. So during low tide the water is out past the Tory gate. But when the tide is high, it just looks like the whole temple is hovering above the water in this bay. [Music] It’s just incredibly unique and it is said to be one of the most scenic Tory gates in all of Japan. [Music] [Music] Hey, hey, hey. [Music] As fun as Miaima was, and it was, we went twice. The main reason why we went to Hiroshima was to go see the site of the atomic bomb. As weird as this sounds, I feel like I grew up very acutely aware of World War II. My dad was in the military, but for a period of time, I grew up in Pearl Harbor where a great number of bullet holes still exist in the buildings that my dad worked in. So, it’s just been like this event that I’ve always been very aware of. It’s always felt important to me to see Hiroshima, so Japan’s side of the experience and devastation, to see that in person. We wanted to spend some time visiting Peace Park, going to the museum, and just kind of marinating the complete and total devastation that is war. But I feel like the overwhelming sense that I was left with having seen Peace Park in the museum is really just how focused Japan is on the idea that you can forgive, but it’s really important to never forget. to never forget for the sake of those people that were lost, those families, and you know, the generational harm that was inflicted because it just feels like something like that just can’t happen again. Let’s [Music] start. [Music] I think that what stood out to me most about Mount Fuji, Fujian obviously, is just the sheer prominence of it. It’s such an alluring mountain. You cannot have it in your field of vision and not just stare at it. Like you can feel the presence of that mountain. It is an active volcano. It has not erupted in about 300 years. It is just that beautiful classic volcanic shape. We could not have a conversation with a local without them showing us all the photos that they’ve taken of Mount Fuji. It’s so clear that they’re proud of it. I would be proud. I’m proud of it and I’m not even from there. But I just think it’s so endearing how even the people who live with that view every single day still have not got enough of it. [Music] [Music] Oh yeah. Good. Yeah. Dead. [Music] How you doing? [Music] Well, we got tattoos in Tokyo, a place that does not love tattoos. We decided to get a tattoo in. Um, I about 2 years ago got my first tattoo in Peru and I just kind of came to this realization that I wanted to start wearing some of my larger life experiences outwardly on my body. By the time we rolled back around to Tokyo, it was 1,000% confirmed that I was going to be leaving Japan with a tattoo. Um, I found a really incredible shop because my idea required very fine line work. I’ve always had a thing for GKO trees. They just have these really beautiful kind of like fishtail shaped leaves. In fact, I have one. I can grab it. Can I grab it? Okay. So, this this is a gko leaf. Uh, this is a pretty interesting variation off of one. The not all of them have this like really deep fishtail groove. [Music] [Music] It is cool though. All the stamps that you can get different places. But Tokyo was known for their their ginkkos. So I just really wanted a ginko leaf, just like a simple line drawing of a ginko leaf. And then I found this really amazing Japanese namestamp shop. And so I was able to find a chazawa in Japanese name stamp. That’s what my tattoo was. Owen has never gotten a tattoo before, but he wasn’t not interested. Last minute, Owen decided to jump on the train with me and Owen got his first tattoo with me in Japan. It was very fun. [Music] [Music] She’s some crack. [Music] [Music] Japan speaks to my soul in a way that I don’t think any other place has ever spoken to me. [Music] [Music] I think that the ending of this trip felt very different than a lot of our previous and other international trips. I feel like I often leave a place very sad because I just feel like when you go to a place, you just kind of you realize that there’s so much more that you want to do. There’s so much more that you want to see. And maybe that sense of sadness is I don’t know when I’ll be back. I very much felt like we were leaving a lot of loose ends in Japan, but I didn’t feel sad because I think that there’s just this deep sense of knowing that we’re going to be back very soon. If you liked this video, please remember to like and subscribe to our YouTube channel because there will always be more. All right, tooo [Music]

Purchase prints from the video: https://www.boundfornowhere.com/shop/photo-prints

At the end of our series Meant to Be, we came to the understanding that we were not going to be shipping our truck to South America. Realizing we were craving a new cultural experience, we immediately knew we needed to go to Japan. This video documents our first trip to Japan and one month of exploring and photographing a few corners of this incredible country. We were not sure what to expect of Japan, but what we found was ourselves head over heels for it. With film and digital cameras in hand we explored Tokyo, Kyoto, Nara, Hiroshima and Fujikawaguchiko. ありがとうございます

Blog Post detailing our trip: https://www.boundfornowhere.com/blog/japan-24

Thank you to our Patrons for making this video possible! https://www.patreon.com/boundfornowhere

》More from Japan – Camp Nowhere Podcast Audio Diaries
Temples and Takoyaki – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ruTKEJPL49o&t=3s
Hiroshima – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWcNotqfUiY&pp=0gcJCckJAYcqIYzv
Mount Fuji – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDR_fSmXyiQ
Tokyo – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvsP5QGiChs

》Camera Gear Used
Fujifilm X-H2 (MAK): https://adorama.rockporch.com/prdlink/wFJKjylh1R
Fujifilm X-H2S (Owen): https://adorama.rockporch.com/prdlink/IOCmGTcX6W
Fujifilm X-T50 (stills): https://adorama.rockporch.com/prdlink/5ZPUvEYq4Q
Mamiya, Voigtlander Bessa R & Canon Autoboy (film cameras)
Film Stocks: https://app.rockporch.com/llink/jwDCEvYGxBDuK
Rode VideoMic Pro: https://app.rockpor.ch/prd/cSDPq3H4Hk
Peak Design Tripod: https://bit.ly/3Yf6D3f
Peak Design Camera Straps (Both): https://bit.ly/3HMLTsN
Peak Design Camera Clip (for attaching cameras packs): https://bit.ly/3fvvqNf
NiSi True Color VND Filter (Both): https://app.rockpor.ch/prd/Gb3N5FRQtj
Camera Backpack (Both): https://bit.ly/3DP9Gaw

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