VLOG 3: Ohara day 2, Exploring Jakkoin and Sanzenin temples (Kyoto, Japan) 大原、京都

After staying in a traditional hot spring bath house, we left to visit nearby temples while enjoying the nature and tranquility of rural Japan.

This vlog is a second part of a two-day trip to Ohara, a small village located on the northern side of Kyoto. On the first day we hiked over Mount Konpirasan and in the evening arrived to a traditional onsen ryokan, Ohara no Sato, where we had dinner, stayed the night and of cause enjoyed a hot spring bath. This video will directly continue from where the previous one left off, so unless you are here only to see Jakkoin and Sanzenin temples I would recommend you watching first the day 1.

After we woke up, I went right away to take some videos of the garden and then we had a typical Japanese breakfast consisting of rice, miso soup, grilled fish and other side dishes. The breakfast was very plentiful and delicious. After finishing it, we took once more a hot spring bath to relax before having to leave the ryokan to explore the nearby temples and to see a bit of the Japanese countryside. The weather was nice and sunny although quite hot, but still a bit more bearable compared to central Kyoto. The first temple to visit was Jakkoin because it was located almost right next to the ryokan, in less than a minute walking distance. Jakkoin temple belongs to Tendai sect of Buddhism and is well-known for its long history, dating back to 7th century, and also for its beautiful and peaceful grounds. We spent about 45 minutes exploring and filming it before continuing to the next location, which was Sanzenin temple, the main attraction of Ohara. Sanzenin was founded by Saicho himself, the monk who introduced Tendai Buddhism to Japan after traveling to China in 804. The temple is very famous for its beautiful scenery especially when autumn colors are at their peak. There are some shops and also other temples in the area around it.

As you could probably notice, this time we were a bit in hurry and didn’t had as much time to explore and film as we would normally like to, or need to, to be able to produce full sized long vlogs. This was because we had to be in Kyoto by 2 pm and we had also to have a lunch before that. In the morning we spent almost two hours in the ryokan, which was really nice, because the filming on the previous day took a lot of strength from us, and after starting the day we had a bit over two and half hour to explore Ohara before having to get on the bus. We managed to visit both main temples of the area but we didn’t get to the waterfall as we were hoping, which is a pity because we couldn’t show it to you in this vlog, but otherwise we don’t really mourn it since we will definitely be back exploring more temples and hiking in the area. The countryside of Japan certainly has something special to it. The next time is also going to be in autumn to experience the full beauty of the place, which we are also going to vlog.

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Music by Epidemic Sound (http://www.epidemicsound.com)

Gear used:
Canon EOS 5D Mark IV
Canon EF 16-35 f/4L IS USM
Zhiyun Crane 2 gimbal
RØDE Stereo VideoMic X
Hoya ProND8 neutral-density filter
ZOOM H1 Handy Recorder
Mobile phone Samsung Galaxy Note 8

For the most part the video is shot in Full HD with C-Log. Only some clips from the main camera were shot in 4K for the ability to zoom in. Eating scenes were shot on a phone in 4K and without flat profile. For editing I used Adobe Premiere Pro and Adobe After Effects. The graphics were made in Adobe Illustrator.