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[Laughter]
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good morning guys it is five o'clock in
the morning and this is where
in our adventure and grades start it's
five o'clock in the morning
and this is where our adventure begins
we just packed up our campsite first
thing in the morning
now we are heading towards tokokushi
shrine
you can actually hear somebody down here
with bells
so you can actually see it on this sign
here we're right here
at the entrance and we gotta go all the
way to this
entrance and then all the way up to the
shrine it's
we have quite a bit of space to cover in
fact just between here and there
is like 15 plus minutes
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let's get going
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so usually when i come out to places
like this at four or five o'clock in the
morning i tend to have them all to
myself but
it's just been like a constant flow
of hikers coming through here of all
ages yeah
um and everybody but us has bells
kind of feel like we should like
get some people back there
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do
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[Applause]
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the sun is just starting to come up
through the trees and this place
this is beautiful
[Applause]
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i found something yeah look at that
having fun yet
so both taiki and i've been looking
forward to coming out to this spot
since day one yeah it doesn't disappoint
um what do you think so far
so far so much better than the picture
yeah instagram yeah you always see this
place popping up on instagram you'll
have someone in a kimono standing right
between these trees it's almost
impressive that they're able to hike
through
all of this in a kimono i'd assume they
probably wear other boots and then
change into kimono shoes when they get
there but still they do it in the snow
and they manage not to get dirty wow
these trees like look at look at the
trunk of this treat
wow
but the thing is you don't often see the
main shrine in any of the photos
it's always i think it's really about
the journey with this place
it's always about the journey
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it's just an open field there i will say
if you're not a big fan of bugs this
place is filled with bugs and mosquitoes
so bring your sprays and repellents and
all of that but
look at this it never really shows up in
video but
this is quite quite the steam yeah
hardcore
and i was expecting after that road i
was expecting
a huge torii and then the shrine and
then
and instead coffee you know you get
stairs
so taiki lives in the super inaka of
japan
the super country side of saga yeah
um it's a really really beautiful place
he posts spectacular pictures about it
all the time
but he hates bugs
[Laughter]
like the worst thing that hap that has
in the world
it's non-stop all right looks like we
have a journey ahead of us
uh still also not a huge fan of stairs
this place really does have like a
ghibli-esque feel to it though
it was only one kilometer away i think
it's like one vertical kilometer
taiki is starting to doubt the existence
of the shrine itself
and it looks like the shrine itself
is just right up these stairs it's about
6 30 in the morning now
so the drums have started and it looks
like the shrine itself might actually be
kind of tiny
getting here just in time for the
morning prayers
the sunlight hitting the shrine like
that
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we made it yeah we did i was really
worried about other people at the
beginning but it's
yeah it's guaranteed
i personally kind of like the
juxtaposition
of the big big entrance like the the
grandiose
entrance with all the trees yeah and the
super humble shrine
like this is taiki trying to check his
phone while
hiding from bugs at the same time
everyone should do it
[Laughter]
this is japanese culture ladies and
gentlemen
oh really i really recommend coming out
here so i'll link the location
as well as the location of the
campground that we stayed yesterday
because they're super close you can
actually walk from the campground to
here
you can hike from the campsite itself
to about one hour or so
yeah if you take this road that's that's
nice
and that campsite actually has a bus
that'll take you right there in case you
don't drive
so we have to grab the car and i think
around the next two minutes
or the price doubles so
like he's like we're not paying double
and just took the keys and ran off