48 Hours exploring the OTHER Japan 🇯🇵

After leaving Hiroshima, we spent the next two days of our Japan Express tour with G-Adventures in ancient capital of Kyoto. Learning about Japanese history and culture, admiring the Fushimi Inari shrine and walking around the stunning bamboo forest. And then, before we knew it, it was the time to leave Kyoto and take a cozy ride into the mountains and our next destination. And what could just be the most beautiful place in Japan? So different to everywhere we've been. I love it. So we're in the small town of Hakone in the Hakone region. And the reason we've come to this town in particular is, well, you can see for yourself. And also after this, we're actually going on a boat trip across the lake in front of us and we're going to get even closer to the mountain itself. And hopefully the view will get even better. We managed to catch it because the chances are so small. And I was expecting that it's just going to be covered in clouds. I guess it's better that way to expect not to see it. Expect the worst, hope for the best. That's a depressive life motto. I think what's the most incredible thing for me is that this boat in particular was the actual boat that Jack Sparrow rode on when he visited Mount Fuji a few years back. Which is just incredible. I feel like she's excited too. I feel like we're all living history today. Incredible. And we got to see the mountain, yeah? Yeah, we got to see the mountain, but this is the boat that Jack Sparrow sailed outside. Honestly, mountain. Shock. Try to come out. And also, you can see. We're up in the mountains above the lake and above Hakone and we're about to get a cable car across the ridge to where we're staying tonight. But before, we're going to have a look around this area. And some of you may know, I've got a little bit of a strange obsession with conical mountains. Call me weird, you'd be absolutely correct. But yeah, when we see Mount Ararat, we've seen it a few times now, I get well over excited. And now I can add Fuji Sands to the list. Just have a look at this. It's covered all days of the year. I'm not sure exactly how much and I don't want to make something up, so we'll stick exactly how many days of the year. It's usually covered in cloud down below. But yeah, we are so, so lucky to be able to see it today. Even at this altitude, it's much more than usual. But yeah, I feel so lucky, I feel so blessed. Gorgeous. We're meant to be here now. You know, moments like this, you just realise that. Yeah. You're meant to be here right now. Stunning. Thank you. Does that look real? It's so perfect, it does look real. I know, it's literally the perfect cone. I mean, chip away a few bits, obviously. No, I don't know. You tell me. Your life will be extended by seven years. It's very specific, isn't it? Seven years. Seven or seventeen. Seventeen. Thank you, Kozo. Do you know what Coca-Cola is in Japanese? Coca-Cora. Cheers. I'm not going to eat mine with a shell, I'm just saying in advance. Boiled in here. Is it better or worse than Balut? That was a rhetorical question. I obviously know the answer. The yolk is very bright. It's just an egg. Just like an egg. What if I ate two? You have to ask Kozo, yeah. Maybe it's not exponential. Maybe it's like you eat one, it's seven, and it's another three and a half, and it goes down like that. Maybe it goes up. Maybe it's one, seven, and another one's fourteen. Okay. Oh, here we go, here we go. Change. Here's the bag. Thank you. Oh my god. I did not expect that at all. That was such a cozy day. The beds are giant as well. Look at the view. So the town that we're staying in tonight, here in the mountains in Japan, is called Gora, which in Russian means mountain. So we were laughing, and actually there's a part of this town called Kamigora, and there's a lot of towns in like the ex-Soviet Union called Kamigora, isn't there? Which means like stone mountain or rock mountain. So yeah, we're wondering if we may have somewhere today been transported into the ex-Soviet Union. We're not quite sure, but we could be in a Kyrgyz sanatorium. I don't know, I mean the bed's probably a little bit more comfy than what we're staying in in the Kyrgyz sanatorium. Oh, that's why I wouldn't say. My second name actually means black mountain. It does. You see, maybe that's why I love mountains so much. Because I am a mountain. Because you are a mountain. As analogies go. I'm a mountain, and you're the sky. So yeah, just like the Kyrgyz sanatorium, we've been given some clothes that we need to change into whilst we're staying here. So we're going to get into them, and then we're probably going to go down for a bit of a drink, because it's the second to last night on the tour, which God knows how, to be honest, it's gone so quick. And then there's a meal tonight, a traditional Japanese three-course meal, isn't there? It's going to be really interesting. Yeah, so we're going to get changed and we'll see you in a sec. I know, I look good. We just had a lovely traditional Japanese dinner, and now we are off to do something very special and what this area is famous for. Okay, let's go and grab our towels. We're going to wash. This area is famous for washing, for being clean. Jesus, that's cold. It's really nice to have a cold run before you're about to get naked. So traditional baths here in Japan are naked. So obviously, I mean, we've actually been naked in front of one another before. Yeah, yeah, that's not a surprise, I wouldn't think, to anyone. We were actually supposed to go to the non-private ones, to the normal onsens, but here in Japan, if you have tattoos, you are banned from all public baths, because anyone that used to have tattoos in Japan was Yakuza or associated with Yakuza. So despite there being some people these days that just have fashion tattoos or whatever, just tattoos for themselves, they put a blanket ban on anyone with tattoos coming into the onsens, because that's where they used to have meetings, inside the hot baths, where they couldn't be listened to. Yeah, so nowadays, even in hotels, if you've got tattoos, you can't go into the public baths. Some will allow you to, but anyways, we were building ourselves up to go to these public baths all this tour, and we had public baths in a couple of hotels, but we were like, yeah, I'll do it, I'll do it, it's too late, I'll do it next time. So like here, we've come here, we have to do it, so I was so ready for it, and then Kozo told us like, no, you're getting a private one. Well, all right then. No problem, we can do it. So yeah, let's get undressed and let's go for a bath. The room actually looks so cool. I'm just editing this video right now, and knowing me, I probably won't blur everything out properly. We had a lovely onsen experience. Let's just leave the video here. Thanks for watching and see you in the next one.