I Drove to Japan's Snowiest Town | Winter Road Trip ♨️ Feat. @CDawgVA

[Music] there's a place in japan where the snow monkeys gather every winter to wait a minute that's not a monkey that's a [ __ ] good god look at how deep the snow is the car buried between two massive walls of snow welcome everyone good morning to the snowiest place in all of japan but where are we today who are we and why are we to answer all those questions and more is of course the great sea dog va connor slipping over i can't see a thing no i don't and this is wacky weekend [Music] [Applause] [Music] so where are we and why have you dragged me out to a place that looks like i would be killed here what do you mean you can be killed this is where you take it for someone to when you wouldn't put them out of their misery yeah i could bury you in the ice and you'd be discovered for three to four months or bad idea actually no i know your favorite things in the world are language needles dodgy love hotels and monkeys you love monkeys okay i do i do i'm getting too excited oh god we're gonna go to see the snow monkeys of japan the infamous monkeys that sit and live and relax in the hot spring okay i'm down you always see these monkeys on every like travel japan.jpeg that like is like come to japan see kyoto you see the monkeys in the onsen so yeah this is a good trip well in this trip you're gonna rank me a top three friend all right if i'm not already all right we'll see we'll see and now we've got a slip and slide our way back down to the subaru that i've rented oh dear on a scale of one to woefully underprepared connor and i aren't ready for this kind of snowfall but our two-day adventure through central japan to meet the legendary snow monkeys will take us to locations both stunning and unnerving we'll stay at one of the nation's most famous hot spring towns enjoy one cup too many of the ever dangerous sake vending machines and we'll venture deep down into what might be japan's creepiest train station not a lot of people outside of japan know the country has the highest snowfall on the planet while it may not be as cold as russia or canada the humid air rising off the sea of japan mixed with the siberian winds from the west lead to the perfect conditions for snowfall with entire towns buried beneath meters of snow throughout the winter months and tonight we'll be staying overnight in what might be the snowiest region of all high in the mountains three hours west of tokyo and to kick things off on route to our accommodation i've got a surprise for connor a remote mountain train station with a hidden secret and a potentially devastating physical workout why did i choose to come here why have i done this i just had the most decrepit train station in japan this is really old oh my god okay guys so we're in the middle of nowhere in guma prefecture at do i station and god do you have the acoustics let's get back in here or it's less echo and as we walk through the station connor i want you to guess what is so unique about it what's what's it special for i don't think you can really tell at this point but as we work our way through see if you can guess it right see how smart c dog va really is the least budget of any train station in japan actually it's probably a very expensive station let's go in here okay let's find out oh my god [Music] this is ridiculous can you guess what it is yet a nuclear fallout shelter or something it could be yeah to be fair [Music] can you see the bottom just about what the [ __ ] is this this is the deepest station in japan and one of the deepest train stations on the planet 70 meters down this is so excessive look at it are you gonna be okay to walk back up this funny land there's nothing else so there's 486 steps it takes about 10 minutes to get down and there's a really weird echo going on right now but it goes 70 meters down and basically opened in like 1936 so it's pretty old station and as connor put it earlier on so eloquently is rather decrepid because basically this is on the edge of the prefecture between guma and nigata prefectures and there's a big mountain separating the two and to get under it you need to take a train but a few years ago they opened the bullet train and that basically took away all the passengers and so what was probably once a slightly busier station is now more or less abandoned but just about still in use i have to say though i mean imagine you're going to negota and you've got your suitcase this is probably not going to be an exciting part of the trip i think i'm just throwing it down and hoping for the best i'm not carrying it all the way down i feel 10 minutes to get down was quite optimistic as well but the the tunnel's marked out with how deep we are but there's a sign over there saying we're 0.3 kilometers from the exit to get back out i feel like i was a bit harsh calling it decrepit now that i know the history it is still decrepit but at least it has character you know kind of like kind of like chris with every step you take down into the depths of doha station there comes an impending sense of dread the realization that you're going to have to walk all the way back up i think i'm gonna die walking back up these stairs i haven't done any exercise over the winter months and just come off it no this is gonna be ridic it feels like we're going down to the center of the earth as well is this a train station or is this the gateway to hell that's pretty impressive are you looking forward to climbing back up absolutely not [Music] that's so weird because dive station is unattended and only gets five trains a day unsurprisingly when we reach the bottom there are no signs of life or certainly any trains just an eerie silence and a lone dimly lit waiting room at the side of the platform i didn't quite know what we're going to find at the bottom of the train station um i didn't know we're going to find connor's hat mounted why is there a hat just on the wall you think there'd be like some sort of insignia or some sort of like trinket but it's just a black cap on the wall i think there's some like pieces of uh articles that tell you about stuff around here pieces of articles sorry that was terrible pieces of articles what i like the most is uh i love i love sri lanka [Music] all the photos all the artwork across the wall kind of makes you realize that a lot of people go out of their way to come all the way down here this station is a tourist attraction its own right all right time to start our exercise for the coming year chris is not gonna do any more [Music] come on mate exercises not even halfway and then i remembered that i don't do exercises and my heart started asking what's happening so i had to take all the break one third of the way then [ __ ] good effort oh yes do i station deepest station in japan was it worth it no no no it wasn't let's just never speak at this bloody station again [Music] having completed the workout of a lifetime in japan's deepest train station we hit the road once more in search of some much needed energy and it's not long before we come across a restaurant serving up the local dish of gamma prefecture so after our train station workout we just struck upon a tongkatsu pork restaurant this is the best thing ever it's a reward after our workout of the century no you didn't know this was here you didn't have a clue this was here don't lie well i do know gumma prefecture's famous report the city of maibashi the main city of goodman they actually call it city of pork really because it's famous for having some best pork in japan i love pork it's the best meat by far it is very good and i if i'd known that when i applied for the jet program as a teacher you get to choose where you go if i'd known there was a place called the city of cork i would have been like i'll go there i got the katsudon which is uh normally i like the egg with it i feel like it misses something when it doesn't have an egg so what what what's wrong with that what's so funny about that i really want the eggy flavor with the meat i feel like you're kind of why is that funny why are you laughing this is a legitimate concern i feel like the egg helps kind of make it taste more less oily right i really like that it's the perfect dish though and also probably good to line your stomach even though we're going to experience 200 kinds of subject are we going to be able to keep the camera steady during that video i hope the built-in stabilization is amazing otherwise it's going to be like oh gosh there's two key characteristics to good tonkatsu so the first is the batter you want a really nice one thick crispy batter but not too tough should be like just just sort of blow apart as you eat it and then juicy thick cuts of pork covered in worcester sauce a nice tangy sauce to go with the saltiness of the pork meanwhile connor's just making a [ __ ] mess what's going on the way chris wanted to frame this shot for you guys so you could see the food let's put it in a really uncomfortable place for me to eat this food for your benefit for you because chris is inflicting misery on conor for your benefits what lucky weekend is all about isn't it ah thank god for the city of pork back from the dead and re-energized once more we head over the border into niigata prefecture and into uzawa one of japan's snowiest towns and before heading downtown to empty the sake of any machines first things first it's time to check into our eocon [Music] check this out i gotta say getting a room with the view is just always the best you just feel like you're like on top of the like you own everything no no what about that see that's that's just part of the ambiance of this part of the window yeah okay yeah oh yes oh yes at last i've made up for it wait wait this is not open why would they do that [Music] why would they plaster this on here they put like this like zombie skin-esque color thing on the wall but there's a bath outside okay look at that his and her matching baths you've got the wooden bath and i've got the but that's my bath oh that's such a shame why would they not put the bath like the other side and let's see this that's amazing that's so good oh there's a ski lift right there and this is great why would they not just have this am i missing something a brain cell yeah many many brain cells what's the room it just goes to show you can have the most mediocre hotel room in all of japan as long as you've got an outdoor bathtub it makes it all good makes it all okay connor's now pulling up the floor it was moving i always wanted to see [Music] the parking for this place yeah is right here perfect i hope we'll be showing that i think it can be hard to really appreciate the ridiculous level of snowfall this part of japan gets but look at this just to give you a sense this is what four meters high four meters high probably this time of year think of all the land that's just buried and gone this is a japanese in behind us here and all of the the gardens just gone under four meters of snake you think why don't they excavate it but where do you put that much snow how do you get rid of it i just deal with it they just get on with it but ludicrous amounts of snow here and certainly some of the highest snowfall that i've ever seen uh in my 10 years in japan this is like this is a joke in it why is he the cameraman i don't want to say this is dangerous but this is certainly not the safest thing i'm not a big fan of sake but i think if anywhere is going to convince me to try new types of sake and give it a second chance i think it's 500 variations of it so let's go inside every prefecture in japan claims to have a famous local dish and here in niigata they've got rice now at first that might seem pretty bland after all every prefetcher in japan also has rice but the people of nigata have run with it and turn the prefecture into the micro brewery sake capital of japan and here at the ponshukan's haki tasting room inside yuzawa station there's over a hundred vending machines serving up sake from across niigata's 90 breweries i've purchased us 10 coins it's quite a lot to choose from and there's flavors that they're saying are in these sake that i didn't know was even possible to go into sake there's caramel there's nuts there's melon cream cheese though that [Music] it's not cream cheese sake what does it actually say okay it does say cream cheese flavored sake a bold idea or a terrible idea a terrible idea [Music] how many cups have we had now roughly over five maybe six or seven my record was about 20. it's not a competition i'm not here for [Music] why did you get the cream cheese sake [Music] all right so there's salt we've got some sea salt here i'm gonna put it on my hand lick it and then drink the sake and supposedly that will enhance the flavor or the experience so oh my god watching connor licks salt off his hands wacky weekends reached a whole new life that's so much soul oh god's like reading chris broad's comment section some assault for my money this is the best thing to do in niigata not the culture not the history i suppose it is the culture isn't it but like succeeding machines it's really good like really rich beautiful taste very it's not like honey mixed with sugar mixed with dreams it's amazing but the chili's more it's hitting me why should it be a wacky write-off at this rate [Music] good morning guys welcome back to wacky weekend uh so it's a beautiful morning here i'm not sure what happened while we were sleeping the room has been trashed there's clothes everywhere wrappers crisp rappers cider socks it looks like a pack of monkeys have been let loose on the room it wouldn't be a wacky weekend of course without seeing witnessing the horrible sight of cda splashing about in a traditional japanese bath without further ado so half why would you say those things about me i've just woken up so i'm still half asleep but i thought i would get in the bath and channel my snow monkey energy as they're very well known ah research yeah very well known for being in the onsen relaxing so i thought i'll join them i do feel that one with my monkey core what is this monkey all right let's get out of here oh for god's sake let's go see the snow monkeys get out of here let me finish my back right so are these monkeys overrated or not i've seen them a lot they seem to be one of the tourist features of japan that is most talked about it's one of those things isn't it you think is it overrated i'd say underrated actually like when you get up there and you see like dozens of monkeys with their bright red faces contrasting the whiteness of the snow it is incredible sight and even though i only i saw them 10 years ago right right i still remember it pretty like pretty clearly it was pretty damn awesome okay well you're gonna like it i'm a big monkey fan so uh let's get going the snow monkeys reside high in the mountains of nagano only accessible in winter via a 30-minute hike through a forest i didn't know that otherwise i probably would have made a video that required less exercise welcome to a world much like our own the world of the snow monkeys that's a lot of them in that picture i hope we see that man i don't know that many last time i came here with joey and natsuki we climbed all the way up here for about 25 minutes and it wasn't a single monkey inside it turns out there's a live video feed of the monkeys and actually when we went there last time natsuki went in from the camera and started dancing around to give entertainment to the thousands of people to watch it around the world but we do know thank [ __ ] that there's monkeys up there this time so this climb for 30 minutes through the forest is not in vain because i'm losing my breath very quickly after our 30-minute expedition that last 850 meters into the mountains we turned the corner to discover one of japan's most famous sites oh it's so cute look at them all chilling oh what come on that's cute oh my god they're just like relaxing i know that's what they were going to be doing but seeing in person looks really weird it's just the red place in the snow it's so cute oh i know we're not allowed to touch them but man because i know they would rip my face off if i got near them but i do want to just give it a hug it's gonna be okay i'll take you home with me i'll smuggle you in my bed they're like cleaning each other that's what me and chris do in the back [Music] japanese macaques are a pretty unique species no other non-human primate lives this far north or in such a cold climate it's certainly not a site you see every day and this is said to be the only place on the planet where you can witness monkeys bathing in a hot spring legend has it in the 1950s many of the monkeys were forced from the nearby mountains during the development of ski resorts with one of the local inns regularly feeding the monkeys then one day in 1961 an apple fell into a hot spring bath at the inn at which a young monkey jumped in after it none the wiser but instead of getting out straight away the monkey enjoyed it so much he stayed in leading his friends to join and not long after many of the female monkeys took to bathing in the hot springs ultimately leading to the opening of the jigokudani monkey park in 1964. just like the apple of knowledge led to humanity being thrown out of the garden of eden here it led to the monkeys discovering the magic of onsen apples is there anything they can't do i have to say this is probably one of the more exciting things i've done in japan and i'm not really even doing anything i'm just watching monkey i understand now why this was really hyped up and why people always wanted to come here yeah it's normally always so round i've never had an experience like this you know you've gone to a zoo you've seen them in in the habitats that they make there but there's something about just seeing monkeys in the bath just relaxing that's really calming 10 out of 10. this is pretty cool they're so cute look at the baby ones i'm genuinely worried connor's going to steal one of the monkeys i think the reason they're so popular is you can see like humanity within the monkeys the way they act the way they prune each other and the expressions they make we can see ourselves in them it's a beautiful sight oh [ __ ] the weather's just taking a turn for the worse our fingers are so [ __ ] the monkeys have had their fun we've seen them it's magical brilliant come here now it's time to go to kusatsu one of the top three hot springs in japan so we can do what they're doing i'm [ __ ] freezing let's get out of here [Music] few hot spring towns in japan are as visually striking as kusatsu ranked as one of the country's three most famous hot spring towns along with hakone and beppu while hakone is known for its luxury and beppu for its scenic coastal views kusatsu enjoys the highest amount of snowfall given its location deep in the mountains for my money it's also got the greatest town square with pools and gushing streams of bright blue water running throughout and quickly turning to steam giving the streets an almost foggy atmosphere this is one of the most iconic hot spring sikes in japan the bright green sulphur rivers flowing down into kusatsu it's a really nice town actually they're able to keep the rustic traditions going with the architecture something that's uh quite rare as time goes on japan leaves a lot of those sort of old style buildings but really beautiful town there's even a 711 over there that uses sort of traditional looking colors they've got rid of the abrasive red and green colors in favor of a brown look and what you're looking at right now is what it's like to be with me after five drinks it looks exactly like this in the denny's bathroom chris has decided that we have to try the yakitori because there's a line and you know how chris is with yakitori he never shuts up about it it's all he ever talks about best food in japan yakitori this yakitori there shut up connor get in line at last we finally found a good use for connor get in that queue and get me my chicken [Music] schooner this is a minced chicken doused in sweet sauce oh it's really good really good i always get negema negy mine's the best one hands down yeah it's healthy it's clean it really just tastes really like balanced as opposed to like zucchini which is just too meaty for me the green onions sort of offset the saltiness of the chicken that's why negan is so popular i'm gonna die oh stoked what am i ah very out of the good and into the contemporary your car this is our room guys let's check it out let me in where is it why it's me come on in come on first of all very lovely big mirror in case you want to stare at yourself all day as uh i obviously do that's all i ever do i mean this is the room it's very open very luxurious as you can tell it has beds really nice dining and relaxing area and another one over there the view is pretty good eh what do you reckon what a blizzard look at that that's pretty cool but yeah this is also another i suppose relaxing area my favorite part is this room is that it's just a room of nothing it's a bit hot with nothing there's a screaming room this is been timed out this is where you're gonna sleep what the acoustics like oh thank you chris all right well i'm off to dinner see you later mate see you later dinner time and that's the room tour what we've got here is the zen side the sort of starter it looks more like candy than food they've got 10 different varieties of food from fish and cream cheese and broccoli and some carrots and it looks fantastic and there's a i think a broth or a soup kind of cooking in the middle a brothel a broccoli soup i know a broth or something no problem you have some steak waffle soup [Music] you can imagine the joy of my british self when they presented to me a pie not any pie a fresh locally sourced cow tongue and fresh locally sourced leek pie i believe i'm in the shrimp oh it's a whole potato why is it so unpleasant watching you open and eat a pie [Music] this is really cool and something i've never seen in all my 10 years traveling around japan a sushi bar at a york khan they basically had a trolley come over with about 10 different varieties of fish i got maguro and fresh shrimp and tamagoyaki fried omelette really cool there how's the sushi really good it was so cool it was amazing we're entering the private bath now to celebrate the end of our epic road trip connor and i book out a private hot spring within the hotel although unfortunately things don't go quite as we'd planned all right let's check this out there oh it's very um personal sized i'd say have a look chris what's very dark [Music] personal two bro chilling in a hot tub five feet apart except it can't be it's it's no peter parker how is it small it's very narrow so i'd hope both of us would be able to fit in the bath and sort of do a little conclusion to our two day trip across the japanese alps and whatnot but because the bar so narrow the guy the front desk optimistically said oh yeah two three people can fit in there even one's a bit of a push this is starting to feel like the jeffrey epstein experience and so we'll end the video over there in the room in just a moment what was the highlight of the trip we did what do we do we did the deepest train station in japan we did the monkeys today the sake vending machines tons of hot springs what's your favorite i mean it's obvious right snow monkeys are by far the best of them on this trip the sake tasting was pretty good too but the snow monkey stole the show i think for me it had to be the sake vending machines i just love that atmosphere it's not even drinking the sockets the sort of atmosphere that goes on there there's actually a group of uh foreigners in there who recognize us and knew us and just chatting with them but just the atmosphere going in 500 yen drinking these different types of socket uh it's just something you don't get to do anywhere else in japan outside would you drink a lot probably too much definitely too much i have to say though the actual favorite thing of mine we've done this trip i didn't put it in this video just because we couldn't fit it all in we stayed at a really beautiful traditional japanese inn yesterday over in udanaka hot springs where the monkey park was we had a bath in the room with some beautiful food we had an incredible hot spring i thought this place was going to be better so i left this in the video turns out we were wrong it was actually yesterday but we've made it into a separate video over on the chris abroad channel go and check it out where you can see connor absolutely fail at making coffee i did not but the room is really good and you see an amazing barista in action actually yeah oh yeah or as chris calls it a barrister as you'll see over in that video but for now guys thank you for joining us here on wacky weekend once again and we'll see you right back here do it next time on the abroad japan channel bye for now you can go now we don't need you anymore okay we've got jenny acosta fan coming up with joey now we've got a good one we've got the good trash today it's going to be coming yes well it's for like cultural heritage cultural yeah again that was perfect again do it again cultural heritage you look like a knockoff frosty jack i'm going to steal christmas santa claus

Channel: Abroad in Japan

Views: 2,940,944

Keywords: japan snow monkeys, japan travel, japan ryokan, japan hotels, abroad in japan, cdawgva, wacky weekend, trash taste

Id: SBqCL3AIRZ4

Length: 29min 0sec (1740 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 10 2022