5 Days Solo Slow Travel In The Japanese Countryside - Nakasendo & Kumano Kodo

So after three trains and one bus I have finally arrived at my first location of the next like week of travel. So for the next week I'll be going to a lot of places along the Nakasendo trail and then further on down to the Kumano Kodo Iseji ramp. So yeah there's like a lot of spots that like maybe I've been to before but I haven't shown it on YouTube or you know like haven't like fully explored so yeah I'm really excited to like be back here. I've been to this place before this spot is like one of my favorites I'm always recommending people to go here because it's so beautiful and it's always completely empty like nobody here completely completely quiet and it's called Tsumago Juku and it's one of these traditional post towns throughout Japan and there's one here and then there's another one that we'll go to in a bit but yeah I'm so excited. I'm only going to be doing a little bit of hiking it's mostly just sightseeing and like slow peaceful countryside travel which I think is like just like what I've been craving after being in Tokyo for so long now. It's so busy there but yeah happy to be in the countryside. It's such a cute experience the owner of the shop that I just got the mochi from like as I was leaving he's like can I take a photo of you like for like for your own memories of like the Nakasendo trail and everything and uh yeah he was like like do so sweet love to meet the people out in the countryside so pretty good news everyone that's snow falling up there so exciting oh a snowflake oh my gosh it's snowing snowing now so happy it's like snowing snowing oh my gosh it's beautiful oh what the heck it's time to get serious so I've just left Tsumago Juku and then this one sign right here and then I'm heading towards Magome Juku right now and they are connected by the Nakasendo so basically oh there's a cat sorry just got a bit distracted by the cat um so Tsumago Juku and Magome Juku they're connected by the Nakasendo which is basically this huge like it's like 500 kilometers long or something like that uh they called it like a highway basically a trail that connected Kyoto to Tokyo way back in like the 1600s and so many people like samurai and noblemen and people going on pilgrimages and everything like that would use the same road to go back and forth and there are a lot of like they're called post towns basically you like stop there for food and drink or just to rest or something like that or stay overnight and Tsumago Juku the one we just at and Magome Juku the one I'm about to go to these were both post towns supposedly it's only a three hour hike and you don't have to hike it like you can just like catch a bus you can hike half of it catch the bus for the rest of the way but yeah it's supposed to be really beautiful so I'm excited to see what it's all about. I really wasn't expecting there to be this much snow like I've never really seen anyone hike the Nakasendo in winter because it's not really like the most beautiful season but it's actually really nice when there's snow on the ground I think this is normally like like that classic like cobblestone pathway um but yeah it's not too icy thankfully so I'm not like slipping over every two seconds it's so beautiful it's so quiet amazing you may come inside but only a sophisticated person so I'm not uh not entirely sure what this is I think it's just somebody's house they've put all of these like they look kind of like totem poles or like uh like little mini mini statues and stuff just as decoration all throughout here and the the owner just came out before and I was like oh you know hello nice to meet you and uh he's just like so friendly I really wish that I could have got it on camera but he was like whoa welcome to Nakasendo today is a beautiful day and I was like oh can I take a photo of your garden it's beautiful he was like yes it's all free oh I love it the people out here are so friendly so far everyone has been very very very welcoming which is lovely I'm not sure I fully understand the garden to be honest with you but it's it's eclectic it's fun maybe a little hard to see but it says welcome but nothing special oh all the the signs are like you know uh no no responsibility for your disappointment and that I've become too old to maintain my garden neat and to be careful to walk so it's so sweet I'm nearly at Nagamijuku now only got 30 minutes left been a pretty nice hike so pretty pretty chill to be honest with you I I hesitate to even call it like a hike you know it's just a lovely saunter through the woods it's beautiful very peaceful and arrives at Nagamijuku I love I love this town so much and in spring oh yeah the the other time that I've been here it was during spring and it was like peak cherry blossoms I was here for sunrise I was the only one here it was just magical I highly recommend coming in spring if you can but otherwise winter is actually quite beautiful there's like a bit of snow on all the buildings it might snow a bit more tonight fingers crossed but yeah it's lovely very very beautiful beautiful little town this is like the photo spot in the town it's like in this direction and the sun rises from over there and there's a cherry blossom tree in the distance oh boy it's so beautiful in spring it's crazy there's not many like not many restaurants that are open for dinner here I think there's like one restaurant that's open for dinner here so I guess I know what I'm having for dinner I hope it snows tonight that would be so nice gosh it's magical this might be some of the most beautiful footage I've ever gotten I've been here for like an hour just like taking all the photos all the videos I've got the same video from like down in this little street like 10 times because the more the sun kept going up the more beautiful it would get I'm like I have to get the shot again press the button again oh my gosh this is crazy I feel like I should just end the video here I'm like surely nothing is gonna get more beautiful than this I dare say it's prettier than spring I don't know if we just I just got so lucky with the conditions I can't believe it snowed a few centimeters last night and we've got blue skies today I think this is what Marco Piblio was talking about when he said winter wonderland I'm like I see it now this is it oh it's so pretty an election coming up I don't know they've called like a snap election so all of these like election vans are driving around Japan at the moment yelling and screaming like that it's always just like this like a very interesting juxtaposition for me when you come to these really like peaceful beautiful towns and I'm like oh yeah try and be quiet don't disturb the peace um politicians don't care it's such a noisy time of year so to be completely honest with you I'm actually not super familiar with Nagoya like I haven't done heaps of travel here before and today I'm just kind of like pottering around seeing a few little sights while I'm here but the one thing that I do know about Nagoya is that it has excellent excellent connectivity to the rest of Japan it's like uh halfway between Tokyo and Osaka it's halfway between the Nakasendo and Kumano Kodo so it can be like a really nice kind of like city base between the two oh Shinkansen how good's that oh so cool but yeah I'm at a Kiyosu castle which is um like apparently like one of the inspirations for uh Spirited Away I don't allegedly yeah very nice the one thing that I'm very excited for is that I booked a really nice hotel tonight and it's supposed to have an amazing sunrise this hotel is a lot nicer a lot fancier than I thought it was gonna be yeah I didn't realize when I booked it but they have a sauna as well and the view from the sauna is like the same as the rooms like you're looking out over the city in this like amazing sauna it's so nice and shockingly the price is only like it was like 30 000 yen so that's like 300 Australian dollars 185 USD really really reasonable like I think if this hotel was in Tokyo it would be like 900 bucks a night easy easy I feel very fancy I want to say that the rest of the hotels I'll be staying at are like equally fancy but I don't think they are so after this I'm gonna be heading down towards Mie Prefecture um towards like the start of the Kumano Kodo trek I'm just going to be hiking a small portion of it but stopping at a lot of beautiful spots along the way I'm very excited because I've never I've never hiked any of the Iseji route on the Kumano Kodo um and there's a lot of there's a few spots that I have seen already and there's a lot that I haven't seen already so excited keen to uh do some exploring okay I have made it made it to one of my favorite actually I guess it's like a shopping street probably called like a shopping street like traditional old town in Japan and it is called Ise no it's not it's called Okage Yokucho and then at the very end of the street is a really famous temple called Ise Jingu it's actually like kind of crazy how popular this place is because it's like it's not a national holiday it's just a random Wednesday um yeah and there are so many people so many people but again like no international tourists like you only hear Japanese it just feels very rare very unusual um for a place like this that you would just expect to be super super popular with like English speakers or people from other countries but it's not the case it's just unusual it's so so pretty love little streets like this love it so right at the end of that big long like shopping and restaurant street is the main reason that everybody comes here and it's called Ise Jingu and it's I've been here once before the first time I came here I was like you know I've been to a lot of temples and shrines in Japan and I was walking around I was like this place feels different it feels very like very sacred and very just zen it's got like the the essence of zen excuse the construction that's not very zen right now but uh you'll see when we get inside it the vibes are just incredible and uh yeah there's areas of it you're not allowed to film in I had to get this fancy little press badge like to allow me to film here today like as well like apply ahead of time and everything it's a pretty big deal um and a lot of people travel from all over the country to visit this shrine in particular yeah it's really really beautiful you'll see oh it's good to sit down so as you can see uh I've rented a car for this next portion of the trip and like the Komodo Kodo is actually quite accessible with public transport it's just a bit slow and like for the sake of like filming and trying to show you like the best of a lot of different places all around I just decided it's faster with a car and I can like go off my own schedule and stuff like that for filming and everything so yeah I've got a car I'm gonna say it's nice to be in peace and quiet but yeah I'm excited to do like a bit of hiking of the Eseji route tomorrow especially for sunrise it's supposed to be a really really really cool uh hike and a view from the top we shall see I don't know if you can uh see me right now but I'm just taking a break from a hike that I found online I think I found it on the Komodo Kodo website um it's called Binshi-yama or sometimes nicknamed uh the elephant's back or something like that you'll see when you get to the top ah it's about an hour and a half but I think the hardest part is just that it's like like four no it's not 4 30 it's like 5 5 30 right now it's not that early I should just suck it up but just a little bit more to go I think I'm trying not to think about it too much but this looks a lot like this the end of a horror movie it looks so sketchy it's okay there was only one bear found in this oh the sun came up like exactly one minute ago but the peak is right there my god this is so tough oh my gosh you are kidding holy moly no way I'm a little bit sketched out such perfect weather oh my gosh I've been so lucky this whole trip it's not even windy how good breakfast of champions chocolate bread so you can actually connect the hike up to here with a really beautiful section of the Kumano Kodo the Magose pass um I was gonna do that but then I realized I'd have to park my car in a separate place and then make my way there so I'm gonna skip it just for the sake of getting the car um but I'm gonna drive further down the coast to hike a different section of the Kumano Kodo called the Matsumoto pass and this is another like famous really beautiful section of the Kumano Kodo and again like I've never hiked any of the Iseji route before actually I don't know if I've like really explored much of this side of the of the peninsula I've done so much travel in like Wakayama, Nara, Mie prefectures like full of some of my favorite favorite places in Japan so many little like hidden gems I know people hate people hate when I say the word hidden gems but they are hidden gems there's nobody there yeah this area of Japan is so beautiful there's just nobody here I wasn't anywhere near as loud as I thought it was gonna be I don't think there's really bears here in this time of year at least in February they should be mostly in hibernation I'm pretty sure but I don't know someone did see one recently apparently so the Kumano Kodo is like quite different from the Nakasendo in that like it wasn't like just people trying to get from one big city to the next back in the day like thousands of years ago or whatever it was used to get from Kyoto all the way down to the Kumano Sanzan which are basically like these three very holy very sacred temples in Japan and so it's like a religious pilgrimage basically and yeah it would used to take people 30 to 40 days which is wild it's like surprisingly green for winter like it's like the start of February right now it should be like you know dead but it's very green and lush I love like this kind of thing where it's like the tree is just growing over the top of these rocks and it's like everywhere like these trees the roots are just so big and they're wild and twisting and that's crazy it's so beautiful yeah the Kumano Kodo is actually a really really really excellent option for people that want to hike that you know they don't want to do like a really big mountain or if they're visiting in like winter or something like that where it's like dangerous to be in the high mountains it's really nice and like and there's sections of it to suit like every level of hiker like this this is like I would say a beginner section it's really beautiful I gotta say it's lovely to do it solo it's like really very peaceful and you get a lot of time to ponder take it all in thank you for your service this is the view that people come for oh yeah so pretty such a classic like Japan view you know actually I remember the first time I saw this photo I just thought it was fake like I didn't think that it was actually in Japan I was like nah this is photoshopped it's actually real it's crazy it's so beautiful I may have uh may have slightly overextended myself on this trip I was just gonna do four days but then I realized like how close I was to Naishitaisha and I couldn't come all this way and not go here so I made it five days and now I am a little bit sick yeah it was really really nice to be able to get to see the Nakasendo and the Kumano Kodo all in one trip I actually didn't realize how possible it was to do both like it's like going through Nagoya having a little bit of a bougie time in the center that was really nice yeah I just got so lucky with the weather and all of the places just so beautiful but yeah if you like this video if you like this kind of slow peaceful travel through Japan I've got like a whole playlist of that on my channel so you can go watch all of them if you want thank you so much for watching let me know in the comments what you thought like it for good luck subscribe for more and I'll see you in the next one