Inside Japan's Coolest Shrine

good morning from kamakura japan where it is just about seven o'clock in the morning and this well this was supposed to be a live stream but you see i made one critical critical judgment error in my calculations and forgot that new channels like this tokyo lens explorer channel aren't eligible for mobile live streaming you see i've done a live stream the other day with charlotte but that wasn't a mobile stream that was just a normal stream and so i had completely forgotten about that it takes a little time you got to get something like 4 000 watch hours or something crazy but anyways what we're going to do today is we're going to treat this like a live stream and i'm going to walk you guys through the area as i had wanted to now the unfortunate part being that one of the areas that i wanted to show you the area that i actually had in the thumbnail was there was no signal there was zero signal i couldn't get signal i couldn't get wi-fi i couldn't get anything so i'd kind of given up on that and headed over to this which is right near kamakura station so look at all these absolutely beautiful and there's a security camera up here as well now today i've only brought this one little gopro along with me but we're gonna treat it like a stream i'm also hopefully gonna try and use the premiere function but knowing my luck i won't be able to use that either so we're just gonna take a walk through the area of kamakura and enjoy some of the sights and sounds together you know one of my favorite parts of the entire live stream thing is the the interaction that you get let's start by taking a look at the map here i'll talk about that in a second so right now we're right up here where the big red dot is i didn't realize there's a whole separate road you can go up there and then all down here it's actually a really beautiful spot if you've never been out to kamakura this is one of the first places i recommend you to come out to for the life of me the name of this place is just escaping me but one of the huge advantages to doing this while it's not actually live is i have access to my phone and it's the name of this place now so many stairs one of the things that i really love about doing live streams is we have this interaction like i get to read all the comments and feed off of you guys energy and answer questions and everything like that but when it's not live i i'm kind of flying by the seat of my pants it's it's all me it's 100 me and so we're going to make the best of it we're going to treat it more like a more like a podcast which is one of the things that i'm actually gonna use this channel for so since this is a new channel and this is gonna be one of the first videos going on the channel i thought maybe i could share a little bit with you about what we're gonna do as we walk through the area so this channel is primarily going to be here for long form content now that could be anything from little walks like this through the countryside of japan or maybe even through the city of tokyo some night time stuff and for video podcasts which is something that i've wanted to do more of for some time and just haven't really done and i figured this would be a great place to post some of that longer content content that that could be up to an hour or longer but the main goal of the tokyo lens explorer channel is going to be exploring through live streams and it's something that i've fallen in love with live streams over the years if you know if you've joined this channel chances are you have a slight love for the live streams yourself or at least you're bored enough to want some more content and either way i'm glad to have you here but i have developed this special love for the live streams over the past year or so in fact if you've been with the channel long enough to watch any of the content from when my little brother alexander was here that's when i really fell in love with live streaming and i'm just super glad that i can now have an entire channel dedicated to that and to doing some long form content so that's kind of a peek at what the channel is going to be about again i was honestly looking forward to sharing all of this with you live completely and actually live and we could interact and we could talk and we could chat but you guys know i'm going to be hanging out in the comments down below so don't be shy about interacting there i am just managing i'm doing my best at the moment to manage the the disappointment from thinking that i was gonna have this this wonderful live stream adventure with you guys i had the walk all planned out everywhere we were gonna go and then i just get you know what the worst part is honestly between just us i feel like i told you guys like hey i'm going to be live from 7am on this channel come and join i came all the way out to kamakura to do this live stream with you guys and here we are no live stream right now it's seven o'clock chances are you're one of the people who joined for the sake of you know getting that fresh seven a.m live stream and you're now like well what's going on where's the where's the stream and yeah so i genuinely feel pretty bad about that and i am sorry that this wasn't live but i hope at least having this as a bit of a wow that guy's just straight up swinging a sword around i hope that this makes up for it even if only a little that's actually pretty cool i don't wanna i don't wanna make him like super self-conscious beautiful shot of the lake seems like he's well known locally everyone's stopping to chat with him we're going to keep going on down this way the main exit is out there and you know what there is a place that i really wanted to show you guys that i was like you know what i won't be able to show you on the live stream because when i swung by there there was absolutely no signal and so i was like oh i got to cut it out of the live stream and i was really disappointed but i think i think i should be able to show you on here and it is by far my favorite place in kamakura and hello ducks how you guys doing just hanging out having a good time so i think it's at most maybe a 20-30 minute walk from here and i was gonna completely abandon it but i think we might be able providing that it's actually open and accessible be able to go and check it out today so my first time out here in kamakura was probably back in i'd say 2007 or 2008. i can't remember which one i'm gonna guess 2008 just because it feels safer and i came down here i did all the the typical kamakura stuff in fact this was the very first shrine that i temple that's right shrine it's got a giant tory gate arm it's a shrine mind you if you saw the video i did with sharla out in morioka you'll remember that the torii gate doesn't always guarantee they're looking at a shrine and apparently they don't want you to enter this space with pets so where i had completely and utterly lost my train of thought i was talking about my first time out here and this was the very first shrine that i ever came to in kamakura but then somewhere around 2011 2012. i made some friends out in the kamakura area and they invited me out and they showed me by far the coolest place like i don't know can i can i call it a temple can i call it a shrine i don't even remember what it i think it's a shrine we'll call it a shrine it's just basically the coolest place that i've been to so far in japan now i'm looking at my phone right now no i was about to go that's not bad it's it's 11 minutes away it's it's not 11 minutes away it's a 27 minute walk away but we're gonna get to walk through beautiful streets the quiet lovely peaceful traditional streets of the area of kamakura my only goal and hope at this point is that the battery on this actually lasts us there i have about 60 battery left on this camera and the goal is for it to get us from here all the way look at that like look at this shrine though this is just beautiful okay four visitors all over info exciting stuff look at this [Music] they're uh definitely part of the pigeon club and we're gonna walk right down this tunnel right here i also in between live streams i decided you know what i'm gonna i'm gonna skip the eating don't have time so i am absolutely famished right now and this is probably the longest traffic light that i've ever seen in japan there's just no chance of crossing it whatsoever like how many minutes of the video have been taken up simply by waiting for the i could cut it i could just like cut right to the next scene but i also there's a certain level of curiosity in me right now that just wonders how long it's going to take for this light to change or if we're just gonna end up jaywalking it i'm starting to feel like we might just oh there it is all right now i've actually stayed in kamakura several times and it's a worthwhile place to stay there's a lot of stuff nearby you've got enoshima where we did our live stream this morning which if youtube allows me i will link i just don't just don't trust youtube anymore and we've got if there's no shortage is the phrasing i was looking for there's no shortage of amazing cafes in restaurants also there is a festival an odori festival that i come down to kamakura for almost every single year and i'm gonna try and pick up the pace of my walk i'm wearing a sweater right now like i've got the pink explore always sweater on and so i don't want to get into a full jog like the gentleman in front of me otherwise i'm going to be soaking wet but i do want to pick up the pace we can enjoy the if you were privy to the live stream from this morning which also will be linked in the description box of this you will know that we got one of the best views of mount fuji ever i was so incredibly excited to have that view as i talked about before it's been the rainy season arrived early this year and the weather's been incredibly unpredictable lately so i was super concerned that we weren't going to get to see anything i thought we just arrived to gray skies and that'd be it but we got beautiful weather lovely sunrise this morning and i am starving i am absolutely starving right now i'm doing anything and everything that i can to distract myself from how incredibly hungry i am but i am just famished i also want to say that because this is being recorded on a gopro i don't entirely trust the audio in fact at some point i should probably stop it and check it to to see if any of the audios is decent or usable so if the audio on this has been absolute trash quality we'll take that as a a testament to gopro and all the great things that they do for the camera world and we are down to about 55 battery i'm feeling like i'm gonna have to pick up the pace if we're gonna make it to that shrine that i want to go to now a little touch base on this shrine if you listen to the tokyo lens podcast there's a pretty good chance that i've covered this shrine one or more times at least noisy truck within the podcast content itself because it is what i consider to be one of the most beautiful places that you can go to in japan now the very first time that i went there i was taken aback not just by how it looks but more than anything the entrance to the shrine followed up by what the shrine is for now this is one of those times where i really want to give a a nice descriptor and kind of do a bit of a setup but i also i'm personally really excited by the area and don't want to just oversell it and then you get there and you're like oh it's this so i'm not going to say anything i'm going to say keep expectations neutral but if you're anything like me you'll definitely see the beauty in this place and i haven't checked my phone in a good i'd say 10 minutes or so it's been three minutes i have completely and utterly lost track of all sense of time we're gonna go down this way check the road before we cross and head over this way we're turning over here in just a little bit the last time that i went out to this shrine i had walked to it as well i just didn't remember it being like 30 or so minutes away so we'll just give it the old college try how often do you get to use that phrase is this is this the street that i want to go down i hope so ah maybe not it's okay we can still use this tree it's not the street but it's a good enough street now kamakura while the main streets do have an absolute ton of goodies to find and explore and all of that these back streets just like in tokyo are absolutely ripe with little cafes and restaurants and things to find and explore so if you ever have the chance to come out here just like with tokyo don't stick to the main streets definitely get out and explore some of the back streets like this shotengai here this komachi street i think we actually wanted to go up to that one there and turn right so i'm gonna head up there and do that now kamakura itself i could give an entire history lesson on it it was like the ruling area of japan for over a hundred years as the shogunite who sat here ruled over the country and i see that crosswalk up there that crosswalk train crossing and i'm just wondering are we gonna be able to get through or is this gonna be one of those train crossing situations where we stand there absolutely forever there's one out in the uh shinagawa area and it is by far my least favorite slash most hated one in all of tokyo there was a day where i swung out that way to pick up some sushi and i got stuck at the train crossing and something like 11 trains went back and forth back to back oh come on see this is what i didn't want all right we're gonna get to enjoy a train perhaps we're not running under that that's for sure lovely sounds here probably just waiting for that train to leave now one of the things about kamakura is there's a really nice little train out here called the enoden that's that's not it at all all right that was not the train i definitely should have ducked and ran let's explore the street for a second on street bicycle and scooter parking prohibited there you go huh it's just kamakura station i'll be honest with you i don't know if i've ever just gone to kamakura station i feel like i have i have to have i've taken the train here a dozen times it just looks weird from this angle it's all and we're down into the 40s on battery and i'd say we are about halfway to our destination right now we're here and we're crossing we're actually trying to get into this this mountainous area up here that's the hope anyway if this train crossing ever this is see this is exactly what i was concerned about just standing here all day listening to ding ding ding ding ding okay and then i just have to try not to get hit by these cars parking also not terrible but get four hours for a thousand one hundred yen extra 30 minutes for 200 yen and the train is finally leaving it's a unnecessarily long train oh finally i'm so worried another one would come those weren't close at all i was completely comfortable with that at all times gotta love the narrow roads huh you don't see a lot of that anymore i'd say when i first came to japan seeing little ones on the back of the scooter was a little more common but this i don't know if you were able to catch it you can actually rewind because it's not live but she has a vest which seems to be hooked on to her dad's vest so that's neat hopefully we're making our way in the right direction my apple watch keeps going off like every 30 seconds being like would you like to record an outdoor walk no i would no you know what we're just gonna do it i'm gonna hit the button i'm gonna record that outdoor walk we're gonna close those rings all those things that you do with a watch apparently all right and it looks like we just stay on this road for some time and try not to get hit by cars along the way i like this bike by the way this whatever that is cross cub i like it i actually just drove one of these minis like a few weeks ago and you'll see it on a video on the tokyo lens channel coming up pretty soon so this bush that you see behind all these houses here that is the area that we are heading out to and that is the shrine that i can't wait to show but look at all the little houses i want i'm always surprised by like for example there's a gallery right here i'm always surprised by the number of places out here that have like little art galleries and collections of music and i'm going to move over so this car can get through [Music] so today there's a shrine that i wanted to start our uh i wanted to start our live stream at and it's called megazine and one of the reasons i wanted to start the live stream there is because the area is uh which way am i going how am i no i'm not turning am i you know what we're going to turn we're just going to go for it right now seeing as it is the rainy season megazine is well known for its oh i'm forgetting japanese and the english the the beautiful flowers that are in the thumbnail there we go sharla and i were just talking about them the other day and i thought it would be a really great place to start the live stream so i went out there like 6 15 in the morning but unfortunately there wasn't even one bar of signal out there so i kind of had to give up i tried on 4g i tried on the wi-fi and they're building a nice place here i really like the shutters on this house that's something that i don't think is covered really often is that japanese houses often have like storm shutters for the windows so if a zombie apocalypse ever hits i would say that japan is pretty much one of the most prepared countries that you could be in for a zombie apocalypse like bars on the windows safety glass shutters that people put down at night houses built up hills people living on islands and mountains and i feel like again if there were to be a zombie apocalypse and you wanted to be in any country this would probably be the country that you'd want to be in plus you'd have all the swords and whatnot that you need and you don't worry about running out of ammo so we are down into the 30s now for battery and i'd say i have my doubts if we're gonna make it [Laughter] we're definitely gonna give it our our best effort but seeing how uphill everything is i'm starting to have serious doubts they'll be able to make it also places like this like how do i pass through here with the phone this tunnel that's coming up ahead of us guaranteed loss of signal there's not a single chance that we would have been able to stream through here now again gopros small sensors and low light being everything that they are the video quality is about to degrade quite a bit it's actually holding up all right but we are into the mid 30s we've got at least 10 more minutes on our walk we can do it i don't want to get there and then just run out of battery that car sounded so much bigger from inside the tunnel i had no intention whatsoever i'm making a video today none and then i'm glad i brought this camera at least had i not brought this what is this tunnel don't distract me what you can't tell me that this isn't the tunnel from spirited away what is this like someone's house is this the gate to a person's home like there's newspaper delivered here oh that is way too cool oh okay all right we uh we might have found the the place from spirited away jeez okay i'm gonna have to go into my maps and mark that just because that is an insanely cool place and why am i not surprised in the least that we are completely signal this but i can see us getting close to the mountains you can see the trees approaching so we're getting there we are getting look at these houses just beautiful though i was i'm all honestly i'll say this much though the smiles of the people out here are just so worth it like every single time that you say good morning to somebody here and they give you this giant smile your entire day just lights up just a little and i love it wow they're they're all about the green okay we we're just about there and if i remember correctly when we get around this corner up here which we are now into the 20s on battery when we get around this corner up here we got a bit of a hill climb ahead of us so be prepared for some exasperated heavy breathing excitement if my memory serves me right i could have just hopped on the back of his car it's turning right probably would have been easier this guy too man not a single person offering me a ride [Music] these these these these these oh they're so beautiful why can i see site i feel like it's got to be right okay again keep that battery in mind norm also it was a joke in case you're not familiar with the the comedy stylings of me i don't actually expect random strangers to give me a ride you know i met somebody once i cannot for the life of me remember who was like oh yeah i hitchhiked for like a year in japan all around the country and i didn't really know what to say about it like i guess there's nothing there's nothing wrong with it you i don't you don't often see hitchhikers in japan though so there's that and they were non-japanese so you know it's kind of like double standing out it's so narrow that not even the bike could get through and uh yeah they had some great stories from it but i just don't know how i felt so this is one of those things that like have you ever had something where you you don't solidify an opinion on it and time goes by and you think that the more time you have to think about it and reflect on it the more that you'll more than likely just land on an opinion well this is one of those ones that i just never landed on an opinion how about you what is your take on the world of hitchhiking are you a fan are you a believer do you think it's just the worst thing a person could do i don't know i like you know on one hand obviously it's not the common practice especially in a country like japan but on the other hand if people are actually cool with like picking them up and giving them a ride obviously not everybody's bothered by it either so again lots of narrow streets down here just hoping that i don't take a wrong turn also wondering if i'll ever actually be able to find the car again so that'll be an adventure all of its own lots of surf culture in this area because we're right near the ocean so you'll see surfers all the time it's one of those areas where you get a lot of i also love the shape of this type of house by the way where they've got like the garage up built right under and this like base thing here i just love that look at these there's something so beautiful about them anyway you get a lot of those uh motorbikes or even bicycles with a uh surfboard attachment on the side of it and according to the apple watch we have so far walked about two kilometers i honestly thought i'd recognize the area a lot more considering that this is by far one of my favorite places i must have taken a different route last time because i'm still just a big old block of question marks i recognized the tunnel as soon as i saw the tunnel i was like okay i'm definitely heading over ah now i okay i spoke too soon just cut that whole section out just pretend like i didn't talk about not recognizing the area totally recognize it all is well we're good oh here we go this is the hill i was talking about and we're gonna try not to get run over on set hill because every car is coming by i don't know how steep this looks but i'll tell you it's deeper than it looks give you an idea this is definitely a workout amongst workouts and more super exciting news when all this is done i've decided i'm actually gonna go out probably get myself a a half decent lunch it's been a bit of work today and uh i would like like a meal probably go somewhere fancy i think there's an ikea on the way home and here it is and i'm way too out of breath to properly narrate a darn thing about it all right let me let this guy pass so at some point i thought i would come back on tokyo lens and do an entire video about this first off look at this let me give you a good peek at the area look at this it actually looks a lot better when this truck is in here it's got a beautiful mysterious feel and vibe to it but this shrine here is all hidden within a tunnel so you come through here into the low light abyss where you have concerns about hitting your head and as you walk through to the other side it's a whole nother world tucked within this mountain cove here is a shrine now if you're wondering the name of it and you probably are i believe the name of this shrine is shrine and one of the big things that you do is you grab one of these baskets here you put your coins and your money in it and you come out this way to this space where you wash your money this entire shrine is a shrine for washing your money and i think it is it is just the coolest little shrine ever look at this and you can see through this cave area up to the top here the last time that i came here was oh i don't even know let's go ahead and say around 2011-ish and there were so many people here that is one lone candle yeah that's real fire there's so many people here last time that you could barely get up to to wash your money and some people weren't just washing their coins and then putting them back some people were just dropping their wallet and everything full on in there and apparently they say washing your money here is meant to give you good financial fortune so that is then when you're done you drop your zaru or these here right in these baskets i'm actually really glad we made it i was genuinely so concerned that we weren't going to make it and that the battery was going to die before i had a chance to actually make it here now with there being this few people it's a monday morning right now and again it's insanely early it's currently 7 39 in the morning but with it being so early and with it being a monday we've been fortunate enough to get out here with absolutely no one and a small abundance of triforce symbols last time i came i didn't get to explore the stairwells and see where it all takes us so spiderwebs the answer to where it takes us is spider webs something in that tree oh he's a squirrel it's the second squirrel i got to see today so small things where does this path lead where is this gonna take us we're on a little bit of an adventure now we're living up to that channel name tokyo lens explorer what so there's a back entrance to the shrine that i did not know about it's got a little bit of a stairway path here you know what i would be absolutely remiss if i didn't at least check it out a little i do want to check out and show just a bit more of the shrine because it's been so long since i've gone there so we're gonna go and try not to fall down the stairs as we go huh oh wow takes you into all these little narrow back street areas oh i love this how did i miss this last time the last time i was here with friends so didn't have the same freedom of moving that we have now oh okay so this staircase here brings you huh guessing that probably loops around and it's all hidden in behind here and now i gotta go back up the stairs i didn't think about that i did think i knew it we can do it i said it a thousand times i'll say a thousand more of you can show me a channel that's done more stairs and i have i will send you some merch okay running the stairs it's probably not as good of an idea so i thought again got the sweater on today either way even approaching from this angle it's really cool we're getting down into the low low battery percentage so i don't want to lose the file i'm going to stop and restart once right now just in case it cuts out on me okay here we go let's check out the last little bit of the shrine with our last little bit of battery he's got a bicycle and a scooter there this just looks straight up abandoned which is weird considering how popular this shrine is there's the kandy gentleman over there who's taking care of the place again it's like a nice panasonic bicycle too a bit of a food stamp here and they even have a washroom did not realize then over here it seems like it's a bit of a pawn now a lady had just come in and i was like oh we have another person but she greeted people and headed inside it seems like i'm the only person here right now who doesn't work here look at that so i think that my love for this place should be pretty much self-explanatory like it's quite possibly one of the coolest little shrines in all of japan hi and i so as i was gonna go over here i just went to put on my mask and a little mr bug decided to hitch a ride it's a big old nope and i found a staircase over here leading up to yet another section of the shrine that i've never been to i really really underdid this the last time that i came i'll say that much i'm borderline disappointed in my lack of exploration of this place from my former visit just the way everything is built into the stone the way it's built into the walls like i i think it's really easy to look at a place like this huh she's already changed into her work outfit i think it's really easy to take a look at a place like this and say something like oh it's straight out of anime or it's like spirited away and it really is the way you go through the tunnel but then again there was another tunnel just down the road earlier that also looked like it was the actual tunnel from spirited away but there's something more about this place that i wish i could more effectively put into words there's something about the look the feel the fact that it's tucked in here into the mountains accessible through this cave [Music] there's just something truly truly special about this place and i still don't get why this looks so abandoned so well the gopro died we probably should have seen that coming i was at like four percent and then just jump to zero love that reliability but luckily i brought my phone along with me as well so i hope that you guys have uh enjoyed this first little exploration video again this channel is going to be primarily for long-form content like these let's uh let's try and get those watch hours up once we get the watch hours up we can do mobile live streaming once again and we'll have no problems whatsoever but until then thank you so much for being a part of it all and you know i will talk to you again real soon oh and one more thing while i know that i'm most certainly the only person that actually cares about this part i wanted to say sorry that the entire thing was shot and shown to you on a gopro i really love this space and i was hoping that the first time i came here and really showed it off to you we might be able to do so with a little more quality but i really enjoyed doing the walkthrough with you and i'm sure that you guys did as well but i just it's just such a cool area like come on come on ah i feel like we got to come back sometime if we ever do like tokyo lens walking tours we're definitely coming out here oh just love this space okay now we're done bye guys again i know i said it was done but it was actually info about the shrine here it was zenyatta it's the full name that is a long name [Music] you don't need ginger shrine it's the same thing and if you want a screenshot there's some english for you right there so that's the thing also zoom and it i thought this guy was going to leave so i thought oh maybe i can take a thumbnail because the original thumbnail that i was gonna have for this was gonna look like this but i actually think this would be a much more appropriate thumbnail not leaving just hanging out okay it's just hanging out that's all right we'll figure it out okay i'm really gonna end it now probably not it's just so bright i gotta find the car i genuinely have and like every time that i every time i've gone to record one of these this i have no idea how long i'm gonna have to walk to get to the car just don't have a clue the house is here the way they're built up the hills though it's just really cool there's this one i don't know how you will you'll be able to see it behind the pole but can we like that one right there that's that's cool house okay so i was about to leave and then the truck left and then it looked really nice and i was like awful got to come up and get a peek at it with without the truck so this is what we would have been approaching if that truck wasn't there i know since you've already seen it with the truck it probably doesn't have the same level of impact but it's still really cool so there it is awesome you

Channel: Tokyo Lens Explore

Views: 50,671

Keywords: Japan, Japanese, Livestream, Japan live, Tokyo Lens, Tokyo Lens Explore, Norm Tokyo Lens, japan travel, japanese, japan shrine, japans coolest shrine, japans best shrine, kamakura, kamakura japan, enoshima, where to go in Japan, what to do in Japan, japan livestream, japan views, live japan

Id: siS4puFCoDk

Length: 52min 7sec (3127 seconds)

Published: Mon May 24 2021