Today we're gonna visit the secret trail!!
This reminds me of home.
Every house I've lived in in America had woods behind it like this.
And we followed the trails all the time, or we made trails.
There's water...
It's a really small waterfall.
It's so mysterious.
Mysterious?
Well because in our secret trails in America, there's never anything at the end of them.
These have little incense burners and stuff.
This place is not supposed to be a secret, though.
Pardon me for intruding.
It's beautiful. The tree has flowers.
So pretty.
Look at the tree over there.
It's all mushrooms?
Dangerous?
Yeah, because this part is crumbling a little.
These are for candles, right?
When do you think they burn them?
I'm not even sure people still come here.
Do you think there are a lot of little shrine places like this that are kind of forgotten?
Yeah, I think so.
Because our population is decreasing.
That's really sad...
They'll just keep increasing.
Do you think this is when it was made?
December, Showa 13 (1938)...
So this was built about 76 years ago.
So this one's not too terribly old for Japan.
It'd still be old for America, though!
It's looks like I ran into a porcupine. I don't know what happened!
Aww I think these are going to ruin my tights.
That looks prickly.
UWAGH it's huge!!
What do these say?
God of dragon.
The dragon's really cool.
There's a little pond over there.
There're koi fish.
There's koi?!
Wow, this is great!
This is so cool!
Well, this is the place where you have a god of dragon.
Koi becomes dragon.
Really??
In a Chinese legend.
I love this place.
When we went to the mountain in Gifu, they had really big koi there, didn't they?
Yeah.
That one was huge!
It was the biggest koi I've ever seen in my life.
Oh, that's cute.
Snake! So cute!
Here's another snake.
Snakes are kind of dragon-like, too.
Yeah.
We're returning to the real world once again.
Last time I came here there were like 11 cats there.
Aww I guess not today.
Is that the shrine over there?
Yeah.
Is this the name?
Yeah.
Dragon!
The water must be freaking cold.
Yeah.
But it's rude not to clean yourself, right?
Yeah. Good luck.
Did you wish to be healthy?
I'm not telling!
Okay.
Thank you very much.
It's the old man again.
It's a snail shell!
You call this snail shell?
It's from a snail, right?
Yeah. We call it "katatsumuri."
How could you find it?
I don't know.
I just looked down.
I've been looking at my...
Oh, your-
my hedgehog legs.