This Isn’t the Japan You’re Used To - Motorcycle Journey

Good morning people! It's 7.45 in the morning and we are in Wakayama. I think that for those of you that have been following our adventure it might be a bit confusing as to why we are here in Wakayama because in our last video well we were up north in Hokkaido but we have something to share with you guys but I think it's Kaito who should tell you the news. Look at my new bike guys! That's right this is Kaito's new ride. I didn't change the name with Jipang but look at this she's so so beautiful. Yeah matches you so good boo. So yeah basically we were in Hokkaido we did this amazing one week tour in Hokkaido then we flew back to Osaka and then we went back to Tokyo to pick up Kaito's new motorbike and well now we're here. So let me get on the bike and I'll tell you what the plan from now on is going to be like. So excited to get going on the bike. We haven't told you but we rested for a few days in Kyoto. As much as we love riding motorbikes sometimes you just need to park your bike somewhere and do something else you know. That's the only way that this kind of trips are sustainable in the long term you know because if you ride your bike every day well you just get tired sometimes. Look at that blue sky today. Okay let's turn these on. So we are here and this is the Kii Peninsula. So we basically travel all the east side of Japan so far. All of this side. We even went to Hokkaido which we were not planning on doing this year but we did. We went all the way up there came down here now we're here. So the plan from now on is to visit the Kii Peninsula. We're gonna be going down south here. We already been to Mie and we've already visited Nara a couple of times. So we're not gonna be visiting Nara this time. My first time here in Japan we went there. We went there last year when my dad came to visit. So we're gonna be skipping Nara and we're gonna be driving down south. Then we're gonna be visiting Shikoku over here. Look at all the things we want to visit in Shikoku. And then we're gonna be going down to Kyushu here. This is gonna be so fun. So basically this part here Yamaguchi, Hiroshima, Shimane this is Shugoku region and we've traveled extensively there already. Last year a little bit and two years ago also even before starting this YouTube channel we traveled extensively that area. So that's why we're not gonna be going this year over there. Well let's go. We were staying at this place called Christmas something. Look at that. Santa at the entrance. Ah the weather is so much better now guys. No more temperatures over 30 degrees Celsius. This is great. This is the perfect temperature to be riding our bikes. Okay stop. Well today we're gonna be heading to Katsuraga. If I remember well the name of the city. It's not always easy remembering all these Japanese names. It's gonna be about 200 kilometers. Not too short, not too long. That's perfect because we love stopping everywhere. And on the way there we plan on visiting this place called the Nachi Waterfall which is actually Japan's tallest waterfall. It's actually a power spot here and it's also a sacred spot for Japanese. There seems to be a bit of a traffic jam here. You look so good on that bike boo. Right now where we're heading it's not actually the Nachi Waterfall but we plan on stopping at this Torii gate. It's called the Oyunara. It's still it's hard to remember. So we're gonna be going there first and then heading to the waterfall. And this Torii gate actually it is the world's largest Torii gate. Where we're going right now is actually rural Wakayama. We're still in a city right here. We still have this pretty like old buildings around here. But yeah we're in in a pretty big city I can say. And we're heading towards a very rural area of Japan. Wow look at these. Ah so much green. The Yoshino river. This is called the Yoshino river right here. There seems to be a lot of hot springs around this area. That's the cool thing about Japan you know. Every time you go somewhere up in the mountains you'll always find a hot spring. So now that the weather is getting a little bit colder it's gonna be nice. I mean in summer even when you go up in the mountains it's still pretty hot you know. So getting into a 45 degrees Celsius pool is not that fun. But right now it goes down to 18 degrees Celsius more or less at night. So if we find one of these hot spring towns it will be really nice stopping by and spending a night or two there. And just enjoy and relax in the hot springs. It's actually pretty cold here you know. I didn't close this all the way up because it was warmer when we started riding. But now that we're here in the mountains it's actually kind of cold. Not even chilly. Cold. Ah but I gotta say this road is wonderful. Wonderful to be on a motorbike. There's a little cafe here. Can we go? No. I know this car is waiting here. I thought it was the car of the construction or something. Oh wow this this tunnel is literally super straight. It's actually quite long but you could see the exit from the beginning from the entrance of the tunnel. I don't think you have this kind of tunnels everywhere. Not this straight at least. There's this station here but everything freezing now. This is a very narrow and winding road here. There are parts where there's barely any space for two cars at the same time. You see that? A bus going up this road. Good luck man. It's not gonna be easy. Oh look at this house here. Whatever that was. It's almost gone now. Oh it's a bit warmer down here. Wow the color of the water. Look at that. where all these people go to buy groceries because this place it's pretty secluded. Look at the color of the water here. I mean this is incredible. Look at that. What are they doing there? More houses here really. Where do they go grocery shopping? Oh my god. Look at this road here. Oh this is nuts. It's amazing what Japan has done to connect you know all of these little towns out here in the mountains to the main cities. The number of tunnels we've gone across today. I mean we've been through at least 20 tunnels. I'm not exaggerating. Literally. Or maybe even more. And look there's another one ahead. It's just amazing. On the other hand no matter where you are in the country it doesn't feel really remote you know. There's always a main road connecting that small town to another city. So yeah you're not really in a remote remote area of Japan. We're two minutes away from this place and look at this. All of a sudden we find this tiny town here. Quite beautiful I gotta say. Wasn't expecting this. There was literally nothing nothing for kilometers and kilometers. I just want to let's let's go. Oh it's right here. Look at that. The torii is right here. I was busy looking at the shops and everything. Wow it's huge. Um where can we park? Maybe over there? Okay let's do a u-turn then. Can we park here? Okay this torii gate is incredible. It's just so so big. Look at that. Oh this is incredible. This torii gate was actually built back in the year 2000 to commemorate in a way a beautiful shrine that was here and that got damaged by a big big flood back in 1889. It was called the Kumano Hongu Taisha. So it's one of the most important shrines in the whole of Japan. It was right here and it was destroyed so they decided to build this torii gate to commemorate that shrine and now that shrine was rebuilt uh somewhere else not here. And uh well the prefector didn't expect this place to become a touristic attraction but given that it is the largest torii in Japan well many many people are coming now to visit this place. I thought this was only for pedestrians but apparently taxis can come here too. Well now you know you can we can get a ride to get to the world's tallest torii gate and they will drop you exactly at the torii gate. I feel so tiny right now. This thing is huge. 34 meters tall. 34. That's about 10 floors. Wow. What I really really enjoy about visiting the shrines here in Japan is how they managed to keep this very nice balance between these man-built buildings and the nature that surrounds these buildings. You know we went in there there was this really beautiful pad surrounded by these big pine trees and it's always like that. I really really love that. Well now we're gonna be heading to this other place that I told you about before. The Nachi waterfall. The tallest waterfall in Japan. It's basically almost at the tip of the key peninsula. We're only about an hour away from that place and uh well we gotta look for a place to have lunch on the way there because I'm getting really hungry but I have a feeling we're not gonna be finding a lot of options. There's almost nothing on this road. We haven't even seen a convenience store. That is very very rare. I think I saw a ramen shop somewhere here. We just did a u-turn somewhere here. Ramen. It says ramen. Can we park here? I think so. Oh they have chickens. I've never seen chickens running wild in Japan. This is a pretty cool system to order. Look at that. Look at what we just got here. This looks so yummy. Kaito went with the shio ramen, salt ramen and I went with the miso ramen. Look at this. This is burdock. Fried burdock. You got what? This is pork maybe. Eggs, a couple vegetables there and well the noodles. And I have some meat here. Corn, lettuce, egg. This is the miso paste and this is butter. I don't think I'm gonna be eating that butter though. I actually want to eat this as well. This is so good. Much better than chips. It's always in those small restaurants like located far away from the big cities that you find the best food. That was absolutely delicious. Look at that. There's all sort of tiny cafes here but anyways let's go. Wow man this is beautiful. Oh look at the color of this water here. Just amazing. Look at that. Look at that. We're almost there but it has started drizzling. Oh I hope we're not gonna have heavy rain anytime soon. The road to the waterfall seems to be a pretty winding road. Look at that. Okay there's a couple of hairpins on this road. Look at that waterfall. Wow. Look at that. Oh my god. Wow. Amazing. This is just so beautiful. Oh I think we're here. We're here. This place is beautiful. Look at that tallest waterfall in Japan. 133 meters. This is what I was telling you about earlier. The great balance between the man-built things like the torii gate you see over there, the pad right here and nature. I mean beautiful. We're gonna go all the way up to the shrine which is located at the top of this mountain and it's gonna take us about 30 minutes The thing is the road looks like this. Like this. And it's pretty steep as you can see. And well we are wearing our adventure suits with our riding boots so it's not the best gear to do this walk honestly. But here we go. We made it to the top. We are here at the shrine and this is the starting point of the Kumano trail pilgrimage here. So you can see we're right here and the pilgrimage goes well. This is the route here. It covers a distance of 14.5 kilometers and it takes about seven hours to do this whole trail. This is the start of the trail here. Kumano trail. Well this is as far as we go. The trail continues up there for 14.5 kilometers. I think you can go. We found this 800 year old tree and you can actually go across it. It is pretty narrow. Wow! Look at that. It's not 800 year old. 850 year old. And there's some stairs here to exit from this side. This is incredible I gotta say. I was not expecting going across that 850 year old tree. Wow! It's this one. Is this house? Oh it's here. Okay. Nice. Well we're gonna be leaving both of our bikes here and I'm gonna show you where we're gonna be staying. This is actually a very traditional Japanese guest house. I mean you find these type of places all over the country and they're honestly super super convenient. So as you can see it looks just like a regular house. There are I don't know how many rooms but many of them. And we've got a private toilet but not a private shower. So we there's a common shower here. This is the first floor. No shoes allowed so we're gonna just leave them there. And here well there's a toilet over here. Over here there is a shower room. Looks like this. And there's also another shower over here with a bathtub over here. Has a little space here to get dressed up. And this is what it looks like. Sorry. And we're staying on the second floor. Welcome! Look at this tiny room. One, two, three tatamis. There's basically enough space for both of our futons and that's it. I love this. It's such a convenient little space. We have a bathroom here. I mean the toilet. I wasn't expecting to have a toilet in the room. There's also a sink here and yeah a couple of things here. A tiny tiny fridge. Look at that. With the air conditioner. This. Yes. Because the space is very limited. I mean this is this is genius. And you know these kind of places are all over Japan and we thought you know why not let's stay here. Like we found there's a whole lot of hotels around this area and they were quite expensive. And since we only booked like the day before staying. I mean most of them were already booked. So we found this one and we said well it's small but let's do it. And I actually really really like it. It's gonna be a cozy night. Well I think that's gonna be all for today. We're gonna be taking our showers very soon and probably head out for a walk. Maybe have some coffee and yeah just relax a little bit here and we get ready for tomorrow again. Thank you guys so much for joining us on this adventure and if you like this video don't forget to give it a big thumbs up and also subscribe down below to the channel. See you in the next adventure. Ciao!