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it is road trip time
got myself a camper
once again
and this time i've actually rented out
a tory gate and you know i'll show you
when we get there last time that i
rented this camper van was with mitch
when we went down to biwako to do the
training for our
boat license
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this is actually our third time to
attempt this shoot to rent out the 28 to
rent the van to pack everything up and
every other shoot has been cancelled due
to a sudden change in the weather so we
really
got our fingers crossed for today and
that that is a that is a beautiful view
of mount fuji right there
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actually gonna need my jacket it's a
little cold out here but look
at
fuji
nice
i love it
so much just so far so far lucky with
the weather let's hope it stays we're
gonna
take about a 20-minute hike
up the road
and kind of pre-scout the road can
i i didn't turn off google maps
apparently and we're gonna scout out the
road condition just to make sure it's
safe to drive up tomorrow morning
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this is not the tortigate that we rented
the one that we rented is
slightly better
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this up here
is a campsite
really
really nice camp so look at this
these have got to be the best spots in
the campsite
right
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here the a7s3 the moonlight is
actually just about enough
to light my face
still can't see kiki though
is this it i feel like this is it
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there's something slightly unnerving
about an excavator out here doing
construction
after the main light
i also kind of love it
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and there we go
this
is the tour gate
that we've rented out
i love this
how could you not love this look at that
gorgeous view of mount fuji in the
background
the lights oh
just incredible
how is it
look at that
okay
let's uh
let's go to sleep so we have that whole
space rented out from first thing in the
morning and that tory gate is actually
relatively new
but has an insanely complicated history
it was built there before the whole
corona thing started then it got so
popular that they had to shut it down
and then they opened it back up for a
while
but you had to pay and now you have the
ability to rent it out but it looks like
that's actually going to be ending soon
as well we got special permission to go
there at night you're usually not
allowed to go there in the dark they've
got cameras everywhere and they will
show up like they showed up tonight and
they're like oh it's you
you're a little early aren't you and
we're like well yeah we're just scouting
the space and they're like we'll enjoy
tomorrow morning but the gentleman told
us that they've just had so many
problems lately and the police keep
getting called and it's unfortunate
because it is a beautiful space
and we have to wake up at something like
three o'clock in the morning kiki's
gonna get the big spaces and i get to
cram myself i like sleeping in small
spaces so
you're welcome you're very welcome
all right
just before five o'clock
in the morning
right now
it is it's a little colder than i was
expecting yesterday was 24 it is
currently just above zero so
as for weather luckily there is not a
cloud in the sky but mount fuji is a
little hazy right now it'll probably be
that way until after the sun comes up
but we're still going to try to get at
least one
shoot with this early morning light
i wanted to do a shoot at this location
since the first time i ever saw it pop
up i knew if i was going to do something
with it it had to be something
worthwhile and good which is just why i
brought the shamisen players out
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and this was my worry already despite us
having this reserved from four o'clock
in the morning
it looks like some staff have already
showed up they they said they wouldn't
need to come this morning but i think we
just need to lightly explain to them
so all seams well they've
opened up the office and we're just
gonna get everything set up
it's getting brighter and brighter by
the second i should probably actually
have the girls come down and get set up
we've been doing these shoots for
somewhere around
10 years and every single shoot we do i
still get filled with excitement
what up with the keys
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kazaki
these by the way are so that they can
slide their hand along the neck of the
shamisen without it getting stuck
but wow
first time well it's done
the girls
are
warming up
in the camper van
and i
i no longer need this so take this down
for now
so if you look at this if you zoom into
the toady and make mount fuji really
big in the background that's compression
by the way the more you zoom in the
bigger the background gets it's an
oversimplification but that's the way it
works when you zoom in like this
the area looks
really amazing but the second that you
you zoom out
it loses
a lot of its charm
this is what it looks like this is what
the area as a whole looks like so this
is what i was talking about yesterday
when i said that they charge if you came
with a smartphone it was free but if you
came with like a dslr or a proper camera
they would charge you 500 yen to get in
in fact this one over here even says a
membership card is required to take a
picture of this place but it seems like
their membership system wasn't super
organized which led to a lot of trouble
and a lot of angry people and i i don't
care
it's so cold yeah
yeah it's pretty cold it's pretty cold
they've got kaido little heat packs
what's better
under the cherry blossoms or fuji
so this place opens to the public at 9am
we've got it reserved until about 8 8 30
and funny enough despite the super
official and real looking torii gate
this is not actually a shrine it's just
just a torii gate that is owned by one
specific family they own this land and
they decided to set this up here so this
is technically private land like this is
all right so it was at this point in the
video that i was going to recommend
everybody to go and check out this
beautiful space and i've been on the
fence about sharing this for the last
little while but i also don't want other
people to go there and have a vastly
different experience than what has been
portrayed here is i figure i should
probably share what happened as we went
to leave we wrapped up 15 maybe 20
minutes early tidied everything up
beautifully said thank you to the lady
in the office and as we were about to
get on the road an older gentleman
probably late 60s maybe 70s showed up
and out of the blue started yelling at
kiki now confused and concerned i
stepped in hoping to bring the the
situation and the stress down and i
asked him what the issue was he shooed
me away and said i'm not talking to you
i'm talking to them
i tried to just stay friendly and i said
to him actually i'm in charge here if
there's an issue i'd love to know what
it is so i can i can help figure it out
i was worried that maybe we had damaged
something or he left something behind or
made a mess or something and he looked
at me and said you're the issue when i
agreed to rent this space out it was for
tsugaru xiaomi said japanese shamisen
had i known that a foreigner such as
yourself was coming i would not have
agreed to rent this space out now
obviously confusing a little surprise i
didn't want to escalate the situation i
tried to give him the benefit of the
doubt so i thanked him for allowing us
to use the space i let him know that
payment had already been processed and
that we were leaving and as i went to go
he almost immediately stepped in front
of me looked me in the eye and said i
want cash i reiterated to him that as
per our agreement the bank transfer was
already completed let him know that he
could check that on his end and see it
he cut me off saying that no he wanted
cash one payment per person which again
we had already agreed on how many people
was gonna be there and if we didn't pay
he was gonna call the police it was at
this point that it kind of started to
feel like a shakedown and i still did
not want to escalate the situation so i
simply said to him you have all of my
contact information and our agreement
we will be leaving now if you wish to
call the police that is where they can
reach us but i'm not going to be
involved in this
anymore
got in the vehicle and
we left
now take from that what you will
afterwards i talked to several
photographer friends japanese and
non-japanese
some of which had had similar troubles
or seen similar troubles when they were
there others which did not
so i can't really say you should
definitely go there or you definitely
shouldn't go there but i did want to let
you know that this type of situation not
only happened but isn't uncommon in fact
if you read some of the reviews of this
place online or some japanese blogs it
seems like
trouble just seems to i don't want to
say follow this place because the place
isn't moving but on the plus side kiki
and i did get at least one or two
absolutely gorgeous music videos which i
will of course link everywhere they'll
be posted on the shamisen in tokyo
youtube channel as well and other than
that little incident we had a great time
i hope that you enjoyed this it's
unfortunate that it ended this way but
again i didn't want to kind of bury this
under the carpet and then you go there
and potentially have a crappy time so go
check out the music videos we made and i
will see you guys again
real soon bye
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you