Adventures in Real Life Wonderlands

covering a half-acre with hanging flowers the oldest-known wisteria in japan is the centerpiece of this brilliantly pastel colored flower park [Music] located in toh cheeky japan just over an hour train ride from tokyo is a chicago flower park the park spans 23 acres and is home to more than 350 mysterious and other flowers the colors vary depending on the flowering season from pinks and purples to yellows and whites some features of the park include the wisteria tunnel and floating gardens but the pride and joy of a Chicago flower park is the great miracle wisteria the 140 year old sprawling tree is located in a place of pride right in the center of the park after nightfall the site is lit up so these draping flowers can be seen at all hours the vivid yellow wisteria begins blooming at the start of May and is the only one of its kind in Japan the park is a year-round attraction with seasonal plants that creates an ever-changing sense of magnificence as nature puts on a show you [Music] [Music] li Melungeon is a curious place very curious and it all comes from the mind of a clown in essence love yo-yo ma glove Jelani shield circa data jelenia he was his shady Slava is an avant-garde performance artist and one of the most recognizable clowns in the world he grew up in communist Russia and spent his youth idolizing Charlie Chaplin Slava revolutionized the art of clowning moving it out of the circus and onto the stage the yellow rabbit exactly yellow field assassin almighty Nakajima jerk-off cause she just made resiliency rhythm suddenly not smoke accessible Proactiv I savatya muy Phoenix to Sam oppressed or Zima picnic the Milan John is lavas creative space where he and his family and his Academy of fools host open events run workshops and rehearsals all in his surreal Wonderland [Music] oblivion the ability as a minute or just a few G million unique watching come forth now vermin each yeah we'll be on for Chester hm virtue of academia symbols mean yama varriya toes e novotná store radial sabaki a virus a beard illness your shoddy elderly Buddhist corner Rasta targeted Vedas toss toss toss to trans metallation Ebola vindicate results my advice would be [Music] you some people who come from to this house it looks like something out of a romantic magical fairy tale but this romantic magical fairy tale really is our home I'm jasmine I'm Simon and we live out in the purselley hills in West Wales we're part of a wide community that spreads over whole region and the local area of people learning to read softly on the earth when we decide to settle down make permanent home it would seem fairly clear to us we much prefer to be in the countryside and I did like the sort of magical element of you know the idea of faeries and we built a small simple modest house out of the things that were around us out of the things that we could easily get from waste and from the natural world rather than going and buying things this is where we store our firewood to keep us warm through the winter it took us about two months so we've used stones mud clay wood we brought in some straw bales use quite a lot of those and it cost us around about two or three thousand pounds in the big house and son was finishing it to a very high standard so it will have a lot of longevity will last a long time generations and we are using recycled materials natural materials or things that we've grown available from this piece of land this is my greenhouse you put the food in relationship to the house and to the water and to the landscape then instantly income the fellows the birds and the insects our dirty water can feed the plants our need for shelter can give nice shelter for other animals to come and live and we really can live in a way which is sympathetic to the rest of what's going on in nature this is my workshop my commute to work goes a bit like this out of the front door dodging between the flowers and maybe picking a few berries off the bush on the way part Phillips neck until I get to my workshop at the end of every day I could sit back and see the thing that we've made and know where the pizza would have come from I mean first night in a house that you've made with your own friends and with your own hands in exactly the way you want it to be is an absolutely magical you nestled in the side of the Ural Mountains the site a reversible destiny in Japan is an experienced park where guests encounter the unexpected the park was designed by artists Suzaku Arakawa and Madeline Jin's and consists of sculptures pavilions and constantly changing terrains there is an intricate network of 148 paths and 24 types of plants that emphasize the changing of the season such as cherry blossoms in the springtime and vibrant autumn leaves in the fall some of the attractions include the critical resemblance house which has a map of Gifu Prefecture a region of central Japan as a rooftop and the reversible destiny office that contains an uneven pastel colored maze and a ceiling that mirrors the design of the floor visitors are encouraged to explore the site but the mindset of a child to climb be curious and discover different visual perceptions but because of slanting angles steep hills and narrow pathways the site of reversible destiny offers optional helmets to ensure a safe excursion [Music] you [Music] swordmaking has always been an esoteric endeavored there's never been a great number of people doing it you have this transformation of raw material the alteration of nature and in the end you get something that just exudes power [Music] this is Valyrian steel my father's sword the ancient swords on Game of Thrones forged with Valyrian steel were stronger and lighter than any other weapon no one knows how they were made in the real world over a thousand years ago in Viking lands there was also a series of special swords with mysterious origins and a blacksmith in Wisconsin tried to make one this is an old Bert sword from about 850 to maybe early 1200s in viking controlled lands you had a sword that had a name inlay called wolf bert which roughly translates to wolf tooth or wolf bear it's a word of power there are only 350 known ulfberht swords forged with the quality of Steel that didn't emerge in Europe for another thousand years no one knows exactly how they were made I think I've come fairly close or at least a pretty good rendition of how they made those blades steel is a pretty special material we know a great deal about it and we know almost nothing about it so with the old Bert you have a mythical steel mirrored in the game of thrones where you have this feel that no one's able to reproduce that black Valyrian steel sword making technology still holds a bit of alchemy a bit of mysticism in it we want to believe that there's something that we can't understand there's still mysteries in steel [Music] reaching up towards the sky at least 3000 pillars stand tall from the valley below to make a towering forest of sandstone [Music] the Shang Jia Jie a National Forest Park is located in the west Hunan Province of China and is over 600 miles away from the major cities of Shanghai and Beijing [Music] fans of James Cameron's Avatar may find these rock pillars familiar they were the inspiration behind the mythical world of Pandora in the film these pillars resulted from weather over many years a combination of the changing seasons and the plants that grow on them have contributed to their individual and unique shapes although the seasons change the weather is moist all year round which results in dense foliage in fact 98 percent of the park is covered in vegetation there are hiking trails available to see this incredible forest however as James Cameron knows nothing compressed experiencing it from the sky [Music] you [Music] you

Channel: Great Big Story

Views: 343,706

Rating: 4.9616957 out of 5

Keywords: great big story, gbs, lag, documentary, docs, great big reel, great big reel episode 128, reels, fantasy, wonderland, travel, france, japan, flowers, game of thrones, real life fantasy, clown, plants, planet earth, uncharted, real

Id: PqprQjGSDMM

Length: 11min 47sec (707 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 16 2017