well that's it isn't it the video's demonetised before it's even begun look at this this is tengu
mythical creature uh with a questionably shaped and rather large nose and uh today we're in guma
prefecture about two hours outside of tokyo about to go on a road trip and uh joining me
is a rather improved ryotaro that is a major improvement ryotaro i must say
let's go gunmer is a landlocked prefecture two hours west of tokyo famous for its mountains
its sake and its traditional japanese inns today as we journey through the region we'll meet the
man who's encouraging folks to drink his sake out in a forest alongside the very spring where
the water is sourced from we'll taste the juiciest award-winning local tonkatsu port cutler and stay
overnight at a rustic japanese inn so large you're transported to your room in a self-driving cart
something we've never seen before but our day starts off high in the mountains at the tengu
mirakuji temple and this happens to be the largest tengu mask in the entire country at six and a
half meters tall with a nose almost three meters long he'd certainly give pinocchio a run for his
money all right it's time to take it off that is legitimately creeping you out actually put it back
on that was yeah well guys we've hit 2 million subscribers here on the abroad japan channel
recently thank you so much for that i'm what what are you gonna say out of the two million viewers i
mean the subscribers actually the uh it's a 1.5 million it's on me oh yeah is it oh isn't it i
don't have to know about that realtor your videos tend to get less views so actually see these
sellers these videos together as some sort of charity project this is a special charity
project but we are in goomba today and the first place you seem to bring me is uh is here why why
did you bring me here it's creepy isn't it it is a bit yeah i mean obviously the war that you
have never been here right the goomba first time it's it's yeah we've sort of working our way down
through japan right we've done tohoku we've done the six prefectures of tohoku many times
we're sort of working our way down japan now we're going yeah well i mean not only to this
uh uh creepy tingle temple but i'm planning to take you to the the best sakura breweries ever
in japan and also a beautiful japanese inn to celebrate the two million subscribers
for you and for me something doesn't feel right about this i think it's probably because we've got
two gigantic tengu right behind us with their noses sticking out let's get out of it let's go
one of the most important ingredients that goes into sake is the mineral water and sake
breweries will do anything to get their hands on the purest water that they can find nagai sakuya
produces highly polished jamaisaki to create their famous mizubasho brand and the sixth
generation owner of the brewery suny ocean again has brought us here to the very spring
where the water is sourced so we can sample it firsthand and also appreciate the importance
of where you drink the sake i mean who wouldn't want to get drunk in a forest
i've been on they always talk about how good the water is they always bang on about the water but
they never ever actually take you to the water today we're here by the stream by the water by
the source of where the safety comes from and now we're gonna drink it out of champagne glass
from the stream it's so surreal just taking a glass and take it out of the water
it tastes just like well it tastes like bottled spring water yeah ah cold
very cold very cold oh is it right from the snow is it delicious beers
like champagne yeah wow
oh so good so good so good party kanji on it yeah very refreshing
just good job so kind of relaxing so the air is so cool and refreshing with this cold spring water
the water's so cold in spring because all the snow melts right on the mountains
fall in the spring water float down so many sucky breweries always go on about how important the
water is but to this day on the 20 or so tours i've been on none of them ever have taken me to
the actual source of the water to the spring itself like this and when you come somewhere
like this and sit in the forest and uh try the pure spring water you really get a sense of
why the water's so important and you're able to kind of appreciate it and get drunk in a forest
and while folks are working in offices in tokyo and the guy sam gets to sit
out here in a forest and just drink sake and i think i think he's won i think he's one at
life gummer is known for having some of the juiciest pork in all of japan in fact the nearby
city of maibashi boastfully carries the title city of pork it's not every day that you pass through a
city of pork and so for lunch we head off to try a freshly breaded and battered tonkatsu pork cutlet
it's really hard to pick up it's so huge it's really thick look at that
one word heavenly that's what it is there's two key components in good tonkatsu number one the
pork and number two the batter right it used to be kind of crispy and then soft kind of juicy
meat on the inside oh wow that's what i'm saying i actually think it's the thickest tonkatsu i've
ever had once you've had tongue paste you don't need to eat for a long time like two hours before
you close two hours that's a long time most decent train stations in japan actually have a tonkatsu
restaurant somewhere so if you're passing through a train station somewhere you're feeling hungry
swamp hats is one of the best things to go for definitely and do not ever sit next to
the side who's a left-handed person because otherwise we're like oh yeah yeah that's
what happens we should have worked this out after like four or five years of doing this
one last thing about like uh some techniques of um uh of eating pork right what tactics
you i always leave the edge of the pole last because this is the part
that contains the the biggest portion of like fat right that's what that's like i love this part so
that's better this bit i love saving the best tool yeah exactly it's like a song i've i noticed
i do that as well without even realizing it oh really instinctively some serious pork tactics
going on here exactly eating the edge tactics why does that sound so wrong pork tactics
having spent half the morning appreciating the connection between saki and nature
by getting drunk in a forest on our way to the traditional inn we stop off at a brewery to
quickly appreciate how you drink sake tsuna nori abe's family have been producing sake at their
brewery for 280 years and for his tasting session he specializes in trying sake in a variety of
ways to show how different cup sizes and different temperatures can make subtle changes to the flavor
how is it oh so sweet kind of sweet delicate kind of flavor
i really like drinking a cup like this you really appreciate it look at the size of it
it's so cute but i don't want to say the word cute because that goes very much against my character
of course
48 degrees celsius
in there um it's kind of rich flavors but like drinking
whiskey or something you know at the back of your throat because it's warm
you're learning some japanese can describe things in japanese better than i can in english
yeah i must admit when the sake is heated up you can taste it a lot better a heck of a lot better
like the flavors really come out and it's but it's less easy to drink because you're suddenly
aware of the alcohol right you can really taste the alcohol um so it's probably a safer way to
drink sake and a better way in my view at least in winter when it's cold you know it's nice
every day every day can't buy it look at this this is the entrance
of japanese in the ryokan it's like straight back in time to back to edo era
tonight we're staying at kawaba onsen at a beautiful rustic inn so large it stretches
up the side of a mountain and our first surprise is how we get to our room
chauffeured away on a self-driving cart it's fully automatic so where from sir
from britain we australia the taxi driver so we're in a golf cart
uh slowly making our way through the rather large
kind of hotel i feel like i'm in a cut scene an opening cut scene for a video game where
we're just sort of sitting on something waiting it's it's definitely faster walking slow death
and the guy's following me like laughing
hello okay so it's pretty big isn't it
wow this huge room
hold on no on the rest buddy you complete the video game well done
finish the mission finish the mission stage seven cleared
exploring exploring europe exploring with rioters the challenges
oh bathroom oh my god oh they even have onsen with it look at that oh wow now we're talking
no we're talking in this look it's really nice it's a seriously impressive room like
it feels more like somebody's house really quite impressive one of the better places that i'd say
you and i have stayed at over the years well i guess so i guess when when i'm in the video
i always let you stay at the really good places that's why that's what's happening always good
food it's not without its downsides though we are sharing this room i'd rather sleep in a bag
than spend one night in a room with riotro even if it is this good to be honest all right um one
thing i really like about this place is the high ceiling normally the japanese japanese hotels are
really low ceilings they're so like in for especially for the uh tall american people
um sometimes you come in you you kick your head um onto this one of these things here but
not that does not happen to this room for sure because start high ceiling and check it jump
don't cry for me el gentina the truth is this is a song i really want to sing whenever i
come to this kind of balcony uh but anyway look at the view it's amazing look at the
the roof the of the house the main building has it's called a straw like
roof and it takes a lot of maintenance you need to replace it every 30-40 years
and it's expensive lord ryotaro overlooking his domain coming emperor why you are nothing kill
me
after a much needed escape from ryotaro in the room's private
hot spring we meet up downstairs for dinner over a sukiyaki hot pot
an assortment of fresh sashimi and a few bottles of sake from the breweries we stopped
at on our journey today and yet despite the impressive assortment of dishes and drinks
the main thing that's got our attention is the chopstick holder oh dear i thought the saudin was
always used to like eat for eating but here they use sardine as a chopstick rest
so brutal i know and then i was just told that the half of the people who come here actually they end
up eating it what's this called in japanese the sort of thing you put your chopsticks off
yeah like the chopstick west and uh yeah i mean that is speaks for itself
oh the crunchy sound oh dear okay so we've gone through some breweries today right and then so um
now we've got this whole like nice dinner and i've already asked ryokan to recommend some sakes
for tonight dishes okay all right sashimi we've got sukiyaki exact sukiyaki coming up and uh so
you're actually going to drink something oh just a little bit just a little bit
it's the it's the pairing and i need to pair it yes yeah that's it that's it let me take it home
yeah cheers i mean we joke about you not being able to drink quite a lot but it must be a little
bit annoying no i'm so used to it you know was it annoying one thing is the thing is right and um
that was one of the true truth that was one of the reasons why i did not look for a job in
the japanese company in japan seriously i mean it would have been really hard oh yeah it would have
been really hard and the first job i got was in germany right and when i came back surely that's
no better they drink what they drink more every day but it's not they don't have kind of you know
some kind of a ritual right and keep drinking it seems to me that in japan people change quite a
lot when they drink though and i heard that people are able to blow off steam and actually open up
to their colleagues a lot easier once about a few drinks certainly when i was a teacher when we had
work parties teachers would switch after having a few drinks you would tell me like their deepest
darkest secrets and all their teachers they hated it was really awkward and i had to sort of
sit there and be like oh you hate that one oh yeah it's really awkward so um i invited this time
uh kim chris board to all these creative breweries christmas that's why it's crazy breweries and this
would be nice ryokan and how do you feel good huh to be honest i do hang out with ryotaro
i do feel like chris board so it does make sense but i'm celebrating you right yeah four four
you know having more than two million viewers it's a team effort we did it me natsuki pete
dawson from the podcast joey the anime man uh charlotte's been in quite a few videos um
yeah it's been a real team i'm not gonna give you any more beef that's what i've decided just
now so we're back in the room just had a very big very wonderful dinner feast a feast no less and uh
when you go to dinner in a japanese inn you come back to your room and the beds are just magically
there just appear before you well i said i've seen some hobbits coming in sneaking into the
room and they hobbits how unpleasant to the nice people that work here at this inn but the story
hasn't finished being finished yet we've got this after local circus we've got local beer for you
because you would be a lover cheers cheers again congratulations to your two million subscribers
yeah thank you very much thank you guys for uh following abroad japan this far and uh coming
with us on these sort of journeys like because uh as ridiculous as they are uh and pork tactics
aside they're a lot of fun and uh it's been a great few years how many as how many has it been
like the years has been like since you started the channel it's been eight and a half years now wow
pretty trippy it's pretty trippy to like look back at older videos and think wow
it feels like another lifetime because you started off from your your own room right
started off you're like and i joined about five and a half years 1.5 million uh subscribers and
because of me right now drink drink of it what do you think of all the food and all the drink we've
had today guys what do you think was the best thing was it the pork tacos it's the tonkatsuki
let us know what you want to try if you come here comment to gamma but for now guys as always many
thanks for joining us today on our trip uh across game of traffic [ __ ] and we'll be back to do
it all over again next time on the abroad japan channel yep and now i've got the horrible task of
trying to fall asleep next to a man who snores really quite badly like but why why is the bed
next to mine like can you like move your bed over here trying to sleep on the balcony or something