Wandern auf dem heiligen Mt. Nijo (二上山) und das Geheimnis des Shōtoku Grabs in Osaka 【Japan Vlog】

Ohayou gozaimasu, a wonderful good morning, guys. To be honest, I don't even know where we are today. We are in Nara and I left a place I've never been to before. It's a bit west of Nara, we are directly on the mountain to Osaka. And the area looked very interesting, also in view of the really old Japan, the true Japan. And we want to take a closer look at that now. As I said, since I wasn't here either, I have no idea what's here. But we will discover it and it looks amazing from the landscape. It's super rural, we're going to go into the mountains a little bit now. So adventure hiking with Nihongo, I hope you're ready. It's an incredibly beautiful area here, look at it in the background. We have many small lakes here, a view of Nara. And I was just in such a small shrine, where the god Ninigi is worshipped. With his wife, who was as beautiful as a blooming flower, the beauty of a flower. And yes, he married her. And because she didn't want to marry her sister, that was quite common in old Japan, that you married all the sisters. But Ninigi was a god, he said to himself, come on, shit on the sister, she looks so ugly, I won't take her. It really was like that. And as a result, his successors lost their eternal life. And that's why the Tenno are also immortal, the Emperor of Japan. Because Ninigi didn't pay attention. Yes, that's the story about it, he is worshipped here. Why he is worshipped here, I honestly don't know. It was such a small, beautiful forest shrine, although older gentlemen talked to each other. I always find that very nice to see, how these shrines are often a meeting place for the community. Where older Japanese meet in the morning after a walk and exchange a little. We are here on this mountain now, I think it's called Nijo, Nijo-san. I'll write it down below, how it's pronounced. And the interesting thing here is again, that there are a lot of Kofun's here. Kofun's, old graves. Shrines were often built on these graves. That's something I've understood in the last few weeks. I've always noticed that. And more and more. And I thought, that can't be a coincidence. I did a little research and it's probably true, that many shrines are built on Kofun's. But you don't know exactly why. One theory is, in the past, shrines and temples were together. That you say, okay, the temple, Buddhism, has to do with death in Japan. And they were built on top of it. But it's a bit difficult, I personally think. Because especially the shrines, which are really important in Kofun's, they've been around for so long. They go back to a time, before Buddhism even came to Japan. That's why I don't think the theory is so conclusive. Why exactly? I don't know. Because actually, shrines are places of the gods. And don't have much to do with the underworld and the dead. And when you enter a shrine, you always have the torii. They say, from here is a holy place. The shiminawa, they say, here is a holy place. We keep everything away from evil influences. Maybe you wanted the people you buried, keep away from these evil influences. Maybe you wanted to prevent grave robbery. I don't know. It's definitely interesting, that many shrines are built on graves. And here we also have a grave, guys. There is no shrine on it now. But here is a small pyramid grave. And let's go and have a look. The main way up is unfortunately blocked, guys. Because some trees have fallen over there. And there is the danger, that further natural disasters, that trees or earthquakes or something like that happen there. For that, the probability is probably relatively high. That's why they blocked it. That means we have to take a side path here. A little smaller, a little adventurous. But why not? I would say, let's do it. There is a nice temple here. Very, very interesting area. Big rivers here. You can hear it in the background. Also just saw a small waterfall. Very mystical, everything from the atmosphere. I really like it. And as I said, I haven't been here yet. I didn't even know it existed. Here again a few old stones. Probably this is all part of the temple here. The path promises interesting discoveries. Let's go. It's really exhausting. I have now arrived at the top. Here is a nice place with a few benches. Here is a rotary club. I don't know. These are these business associations or something. You probably know that better. These rotary clubs. I haven't dealt with them yet. There are definitely a lot of them in Japan. They built a stone here somehow. And here we also see the mountains nicely. We are up there now. We can't see it very well in the back, because there are a lot of trees. That's Osaka. And here we have Nara. Beautiful, beautiful. I love being up on the mountains. And if there aren't that many trees there, you have a nice view. It's really amazing how far you can look and what you can see. I love that. That's always a highlight for me, these tours here, the view. I don't know why, but I think it's probably the same for many. That's why the Japanese also like to go up on the mountain, hike a bit, enjoy a nice view. Maybe a little picnic with the view. Now I have nothing to eat. That's bad, of course. So no picnic for me. They like to do that. And this path here seems to be a bit more famous, more popular. A lot of Japanese are traveling here. That's not always the case. But yes, guys. It's beautiful. I actually didn't want to go here. I actually wanted to go to a beautiful stone. I missed it. When I got up here, the sign for the stone is down again. That's good again, of course. But the path led me here. And it's beautiful. I'll enjoy the view first. I wanted to go to this place. I found it. This is called Iwaya. It is now registered as a historical treasure, cultural treasure, whatever you want to call it in Japan. You can't change anything about it. And this is probably an incision in this stone, in this cave, which was made 1,300 years ago, was supposed to have been created when a temple was built here. 1,300 years ago, that's about 700 plus or minus, I don't know how many years. And that's relatively early. That's the time. 100, 200 years ago, Buddhism came to Japan. And then they started building temples everywhere. Super interesting, guys. We also have this very old stone here, probably in the middle. They probably carved a pagoda in there or something. I don't know. It's already bombastic. There are also a lot of kanji on the wall. But I can't really decipher that. It's so mixed up, everything somehow, and so unrecognizable. Crazy thing in any case. And here we have a 600-year-old tree. A tsugi. I think it's a pine tree. And it fell over in 1998, I think, in a typhoon. The thing fell over. And it's been there since. 600-year-old thing. The madness. We have to go there. That's 1,300 years ago. You probably know that pretty well here. That means, the temples and so on, the people were in the mountains 1,300 years ago or at least worked on the mountains, built them nicely into the stone. That's a bit of my theory, that even before that, the people were even more active in the mountains, also used heights and so on, which are still difficult to access today or which are simply scattered today, still undiscovered, because the mountains have not been a really great place so far. Also in terms of the atmosphere, people. We're already somewhere nowhere again, man. I have no idea where we are. It's again, I don't know. If we get out of Osaka at some point in the end, it's all good. I think we'll do that too. But I'm getting hungry slowly and I have nothing to eat. That's not a good thing. My water supply or tea supply is also declining. That's the last thing I have. Guys, hard times are coming here. I can feel it. But this stone excites me again. Madness thing. It's called Iwaya. What the people, what the ancestors did here. I mean, they're not my ancestors now, probably. Unless 1,300 years ago my ancestors were in Japan. I have no idea. But somehow such places always do something with me, people. They always excite me and somehow it's a special atmosphere when you know the people 1,300 years ago carved it in there. I don't know. It's somehow mystical. These are also the remains of a temple. It probably belonged to where we were just now, at this Iwaya. Here we also see such a beautiful stone tower. They also locked it down very much back there. We can see that Buddha was somehow drawn into the rock. You can also see half of one Buddha's head a little bit. But they locked it down so hard here. So we're afraid that someone will come in. It's an interesting area here, I have to be honest. Especially because a lot of it seems to be made of stone and a lot of it also fell into the stone. Yes, carved. What do you call that? Carved. That's what you actually say when you've chiseled, I think. Chiseled. Yes, people. And here in the area, as I said, there are also some coffins again. I really believe that a whole lot of graves are still in the mountains, which have not yet been discovered. There is also supposed to be a very famous grave nearby, of some prince of the imperial house. This is also managed by the imperial court in Konaicho. You can't dig it up again and so on. But it's interesting that all these graves, the old things, were really built into the mountains or on the hillside. Why? I don't know. But there must be a reason. Whatever people thought back then. But it's definitely interesting. And what I also noticed, for the people among you who are interested in graves, what I often find out is that there are bamboo forests on graves. I don't know if there is any special connection, but I notice that very often. You have coffins somewhere, bam, bamboo. Bamboo everywhere. Probably not everywhere where there is bamboo, there are graves. But the chance that there is bamboo where there is a grave is not so small, I would say. No idea what kind of connection that is. If any of you know or have an idea, let me know in the comments. So guys, we have to come down now. I hope I'll ever come down from this mountain again. I want to go to Osaka slowly. Let's go! It says here, higawaritei shoku. That means, they have a menu here. They have something to eat, people. I finally found something to eat. I would say we go in there and see what they have for us. That was an experience in the shop. The woman said, we have nothing to eat anymore, sit down there first. Then she let me sit there for 10 minutes behind the entrance. Until she came to me and said, there is no more half of the menu. But here we have a few more sandwiches. I took a katsu sandwich. That's a sandwich with tonkatsu on it. And guys, it was just divine. It tasted really good. I also took a coffee with a little ice cream. And now we're on our way down. We are already on the Osaka side. But we still have a long way to go. There is a small facility back there. They fish there all the time. The road is a bit dangerous and I don't quite know how we get down here unnoticed. But I think we'll find a way. It's more than a secret again, guys. I just walked through a place here called Asuka. Now you might think, how? Asuka? That's the place in Nara, where the emperors used to be. Right. This place is also found in Osaka. And with exactly the same kanji. Why is that the case? I can't tell you. There is also a kashiwara here on the Osaka side. And in Nara the kashihara. It is read differently. The kanji are also different. But it's pretty similar. So that you could get the idea that the kanji are read differently. In any case, quite a few emperors worked here. Osaka used to be the capital of Japan. And here you can find a lot of keyhole graves of old emperors. That should also be a grave in the background. But not from an emperor, but from a lawyer. The good Shotoku Taishi. You may know him. You talk to him when you study Japanese actually always at some point. One of the most important, who is also considered to be the founder of the Taika Reform. He also wanted to spread Buddhism more or less in Japan. But still on the side of Shinto. Because he was a bit in between. Because he was an emperor lawyer. And emperor was usually Shinto. He is also a relatively controversial person. His death is a bit controversial. Some say he didn't even exist. Others say he was murdered. And others say he died quite normally. It's not all that clear. Interestingly, this grave here is managed by the imperial court. And usually in graves that are managed by the imperial court, we don't have that here. I've never seen anything like that in any grave that has been managed by them. Here we have a small temple-like building. But on the gates here we have the imperial coat of arms. Super interesting people. I have no idea what that all means. I knew I didn't even want to go here. I accidentally read on the sign that the Shotoku Taishi should be here. And I thought, yes, I'll stop by for a moment. So very, very mysterious and mysterious again. I've never seen such a kind of grave. It's super impressive. I really like how it's built here. You can still walk around a bit. These stones in the background have such strange signs. I don't know if they're kanji. We'll have to take a closer look. Very interesting place. I just found another coffin in the park before I went to the Shotoku Taishi Grave. Or there must have been several that you accidentally discovered. Before, I don't know how many years, sometime in the Showa era. And there was something very interesting on the sign. And that you assume that these graves were somehow influenced by Toraijin. So people who weren't originally Japanese, but came here to Japan. That they have something to do with it. And of course I can think of the good old Hatachi. Or you also know that they were relatively active here in the area. Osaka was also the capital at the time. At the time of Ojin-tenno, Nintoku-tenno and so on. So super, super interesting. You can find it here. It used to be called Kawachi-koko here. You can find it everywhere. In shrines, in temples. Again and again small hints on it. Yes, it probably has something to do with the people who came to Japan from abroad. But that's all there is to it. You can find it everywhere, which is why it is very likely, I think. Pretty interesting. You can see in the background, the rain is probably coming. It's gotten a little dark. This is where this vlog should end. Incredibly interesting again. To understand the area here better. And some of you are probably thinking, Kevin, you've been living in Osaka for almost five years now. And you go around and do vlogs. Didn't you see everything at some point? I have to say, no, I didn't. There is probably still material for several years. Because there is so much here. So much culture. So many interesting historical places. You can't discover it all that quickly. Sure, if I were to walk around here every day, then I would have it through at some point. But I can't do that either. Maximum once a week I'm on the road for a vlog. There is still a lot to discover, people. And it is also important, I think, to take the time, to feel these places, to take a close look, to read what is written on the signs. Maybe talk to the priests when some are there. That's really important. And that's why I do it. Let's see what we'll discover in the future. I think there are still some secrets to be revealed here. All right, then I'd say I'm on my way home. On to the train. I hope you liked it. I hope you were able to learn something new about Japan. And I hope I can bring this mystique a little bit over. Because it's just super exciting here. Thank you for watching. Thank you very much for all the support. Feel free to look in the video description. There are a lot of online courses. Japanese, dealing with Japanese. So a lot of discount links. All in the video description. See you!