The Side of JAPAN That Media Does Not Show
Have you ever thought about a fact that, most countries in the world we simply know Thanks to one or two famous sites and stereotypes. Like take the French, they have their Tower and bread that for some reason look quite similar. Americans, as we all know, love their hamburgers almost as much as they love their freedom. And when it comes to Japan. Then for most visitors this country is a land of pink cherry blossoms and extremely fast trains. Okay, these things are just super fast. like even the sound! and don't get me wrong. There is of course a fair bit of truth in each and every one of those stereotypes,
But thinking in this manner can also be dangerous. making you to focus only on the most touristy places, And so forcing you to miss out on what in my opinion are the most extraordinary travel experiences. Only because they haven't been deemed tourist friendly by our media. And so the purpose of this video it's actually quite simple. I want to take you to one of such places.
A region that 99% of visitors that come to Japan have never even heard about. yet for us it was the most magical location A place that made us truly fall in love with this country. but as a bit of a backstory... This adventure started in Kyoto while typhoon Shanshan, Japan's biggest storm in 2024, was raging through the country. It was a strange time to be a visitor in a foreign land. Each day we translated local weather reports to English, and every time we saw that the storm was creeping closer to us.
leaving cities in its way looking like this. Until finally, just one day before the storm arrived in Kyoto, we decided to escape. Today we're going somewhere remote. it's 4 hours from Kyoto and it's the definition of rural and old Japan. There is a slight problem though. Because there is a huge storm that's coming. Our road was headed east towards the more mountainous and forested region between the two most famous cities of Japan. It is absolute Mayhem, but we're trying to stay positive in this absolutely chaotic situation.
And as we soon realized it was pure luck that granted us the last two spots on a fully packed train. Every place on this train has somebody standing. because after us leaving, all means of transportation were cancelled due to rough weather conditions for two whole days. let's press on somewhere! sorry... There is not much choice.
However the views from the train Windows looking onto the green cloudy valleys were truly Mesmerizing. the village we were staying in was called Magome-Juku. and when we finally arrived it became clear that this ancient region of Japan. has more to offer than we could have ever hoped Even in our wildest dreams. I don't know how it would look like on a sunny day but when it's raining it's stunning.
even the small rain clouds that had followed us from Kyoto could not dampen our moods. and straight away it felt like we had entered some forgotten and fairytale. it's absolutely stunning so beautiful! Magome was surrounded with ancient Woodlands from all sides. I'm pretty sure that's a bamboo forest down there. it looks like you're on a green screen! What?? it looks like you're on a green screen! The houses and roads built in the tradition style felt old but were maintained very well. and it's super cool that the whole village is filled with sounds of water.
like the canals they just run pretty much under the road and next to the road on both sides. and they're feeding their rice patties all all around the Village. but it just gives this very nice atmosphere the whole place. it almost didn't seem logical that we were the only people in this incredibly gorgeous place. there's very little places in the world where tourists haven't conquered and over visited. However just like this for nearly 400 years that little farming Village has stood in this very same spot. It sounds just as beautiful as it looks. Birds, insects chirping...
I know that GoPro doesn't show it but there's 20 dragon flies in my vision the air is full of them. Okay I'm sure some of you are now wondering why would anyone even want to build a town in such a remote location. And to answer this we need to start by first going back to the time. When instant messaging had nothing to do with cell phones and instead meant writing something on a piece of paper and letting the postman carry it to the receiver, in the shortest way possible. and surprise surprise this Village here was located on a 534 km long stretch of road
That happened to be the shortest postal Road. There was a trail going from Kyoto to Edo and Edo was the place which Tokyo grew out of. So yeah historically this Village was essential for carrying messages as quickly as possible between Japan's biggest cities Yet to find out what purpose it serves today we wanted to hike a small part of this Trail ourselves on the following day.
But our first day here we finished with quite an unusual dinner. this small place on the side of the road sells wagyu sushi. so raw beef sushi. yes? it's like the best beef you've ever had. it's raw and then there's some nice vinegar sushi rice underneath it. It is so full of the marbling it's so juicy. This is some wonderful wonderful thing to eat Around Sunset we finally settled into our guest house.
where we anxiously hoped that the weather next day would be on our side the atmosphere next morning instantly lifted our Spirits. Second morning in a paradise! but today we're not going to stay for long cuz uh turns out there's more places to see around here and now our plan is to follow the ancient post Trail between the mountains to the next small village turns out that the forest and mountains had fended off the rainclouds and strangely it almost felt unfair that we were gifted a perfect summer's day while The rest of Japan were struggling with heavy flooding. I'm super glad that we have a weather window like this because yesterday it was raining and the typhoon is getting closer. but now it's absolutely gorgeous. there's Sun there's absolutely no wind so beautiful. Our trail headed straight into the forest that surrounded Magome. The route just casually turned into a beautiful forest and it didn't take long for us to understand, how privileged we were to be able to experience this rarely seen wild the natural part of Japan. just look at the low and beautiful clouds
above the the forest tall evergreen trees stretched upwards above our heads. And next to the path big waterfalls filled the air with thundering sounds The fresh smell of rain and Greenery created a feeling, that we were somehow part of this unique ecosystem. the only sign of other humans was the road below our feet and the occasional bells on the side of the road. that at first we thought had something to do with a historic postal road.
So I thought it was like 1 kilometer marks or something. So that you can ring the bells like Ding... but turns out we were totally wrong. "ring the bell against Bears" is what it says on the on the leaflet. it just says that there's bears in the woods, and you need to hit the Bell hard to make them aware of your whereabouts yeah, this kind of gives you the idea how Wild this place truly is. At around halfway mark of the 8 km Trail we ran into a historic Tea House. It says free Tea Room on the door I don't know when something is free I I I sort of gets suspicious but we're going to go and have a look the open fire pit in the center of the building has been burning daily for centuries it smells like like smoke giving the house a specific Smoky smell and a dark dainty look the smoke Rises up to the ceiling that's why it's so black every item that we saw laying around us felt as a portal in into the past of this country and region this sewing machine is made by Toyota that's funny it's a machine that you can use to make rope out of uh rice stems and then afterwards you can use every part of the rice plant and also get shoes or sitting pillows. hundreds of years ago when
the Postal Road was still active such tea houses they served the great purpose for the people passing through to take a rest to to have a drink to just regain them their strength and it's it's very beautiful that they're still here the second half of our hike was just as engaging as the first like how can you not like this Trail it's it's just super beautiful we passed through Eerie bamboo Groves just thick bamboo forest on the side oh there's a rout that goes in you want to go let's go! I'm not even sure sure if camera shows it but between every third tree there's a spiderweb because they're just so close together. The forest is so thick that it makes a perfect hunting ground for the spiders. we walked on hauntingly beautiful Forest roads. and so many small villages that are often overlooked and even abandoned in the rapidly urbanizing Japan and up here you can see that quite a few of those houses have actually been abandoned this is the challenge of rural Japan that a lot of people just move into the cities and this is why there have been offers online to for 5,000 or 10,000 buy a house in Japan but the reason why these houses are so cheap is that they're either very far away from bigger cities they are in bad conditions The Villages are dying out so they want to increase the population in Countryside places yet whatever we encountered on the path one thing always stayed the same you see compared to the life we had seen in Japan's mega cities things here just felt real and authentic I can't believe that I'm saying this but I think you should forget about Tokyo because here in the rural Countryside of Japan we have found the most beautiful place that this country has to offer this is absolutely amazing you would have never guessed that this could be the favorite part of Japan for me there was no need for flashy lights or loud noises to keep someone's attention because the Tranquil atmosphere combined with the sounds of nature were more than enough to keep every visitor present with all of their senses engaged. drinkable Spring Water straight from the mountains a good place to fill up our water bottle by early afternoon we made it to Tsumago-Juku the second of the many small postal towns on the famous Nakasendo Trail. I think the sign says only you and your little Satan between 10 and four... that is a woman child that is a girl it has a bow on top... oh makes sense
and once again we were speechless, from unique architecture, that's the cutest police station I've ever seen, to the well-kept gardens where trees have been groomed for centuries, decades of work and pruning that is thought through. and then you get those cloudlike beautiful beautiful trees Every second house has their own little water reservoir. there's koi fish in there. very lovely, every small thing around this just seemed to be a little piece of a large and beautiful picture, even connecting with locals was much easier compared to the bigger cities where Japanese people are known to be quite modest and closed off when it comes to foreigners Hello! Welcome to Tsumago! Country? Country? I'm From Estonia! and just like this, once more detail at the time, this little known part of the country started to leave its mark on us. and this part of the town here is renovated and done exactly
like it used to be in the 1600s. this one looks exactly like the place where we had tea in the middle of the route. we had hardly been here for 24 hours but somehow, for the first time in Japan, we felt the sense of belonging. Like A Rush of happiness that created an imprint. a memory in our minds, although no specific memorable thing actually happened.
and to this day, we simply remember those Villages thanks to the feeling they created somewhere deep within us. the hours flew by quickly after 3 hours of walking I do feel kind of hungry it cost us around $10 to fill our bellies with some unusual local foods. such an interesting concept it's like sweetened and boiled fish and it's still in one piece like you eat the spine you eat I think the head as well not not too sure about this but it's very sweet very Tangy.
I actually think all the shots of me eating are not very cinematic I'm not a clean eater... And by late afternoon we found our way back to Magome Which by now felt almost like home. We were just walking on the streets of our so-called hometown. And LiIsu was saying that Hiroshima and Tokyo and Kyoto are like must see places in Japan but next time we come here I don't think we'll go to the must-see places. but this one here is not the must-see. it's "I want to see" place. this is why you come to Japan! like this is my
favorite place in Japan! yeah! I'm sure we have all heard the saying of how little things in life matter the most. we know this saying to be true for happiness and relationships. Yet Perhaps for the first time in my life, I now realized, that the same thing also goes for traveling This is the part of this country that will make you want to come back. yes exactly! Big sights like the Eiffel towers and pyramids of the world create in us the initial interest towards a new country. but if you truly wish to know or perhaps even learn to love a place other than your home, then the small things, and places like Magome, are the ones that create a lasting bond and connection that makes us want to visit those places time, after time, After time.
Friends, thank you for watching, and don't forget to check out the web page linked in the description of this video. over there you can find our favorite travel gear, that we guarantee, will make exploring the world easier and more enjoyable for you! Take care and bye!
2024-10-23 19:35
