日本のバンライフは…違う

日本のバンライフは…違う

There are average road trips and then there is van life in Japan. We honestly have no idea what we’ve gotten ourselves into over the next couple of weeks. Cruising around the country in this absolute beast of an RV, which don’t worry, we’ll give you the full tour in today’s vlog. But I think it’s safe to say that Japan doesn’t really do average. And there are just some experiences that can only happen here. My job off someone’s watching kind of [Music] Heat. Hey. Hey. Hey. [Music] [Music] [Music] Good morning, guys. This is just the most unique experience that we’ve ever had waking up at a campsite. Well, it’s not really a campsite. It’s one of those road stations again, but we’ve got hot coffees out of the vending machine and a little natural mineral hook bath. It’s some heated water. And apparently it has those feeling properties like an onsent because it’s got that sulfur smell. So, we’re enjoying our coffee with the smell of egg this morning. Yeah, it stinks. But, uh, this is a good start to the day. Well, guys, people rocked up. A lot of people. You got to be quick in Japan cuz there’s so many people here. You got to wake up really early to get things to yourself. But that was a good experience. My legs feel 20 years younger. They might even actually makes me want to go to a full onen so much more now. My feet do feel they feel so soft. They feel weird and tingly. Yeah, that might just be my blood flow pressure problem that I need to get sorted. Look where we camped last night. Next level. But this morning, this morning, all the clouds, you couldn’t even see the mountains and it was beautiful. [Music] Just as we were getting back into the van, we spotted a waterfall down there, but I can’t tell if it’s like a real waterfall or just like a shoot of water coming out of somewhere, but we’re going to go down for a look anyway. Bye-bye. At least we’re closer, I think. Oh, look at that big chain stopping us. Well, actually, it’s just stopping cars. Well, I think I don’t think it we should not go down there. Okay. Will be those annoying tourists on the Japanese news. Oh, wow. That’s still pretty. There it is, guys. It’s pretty stunning. The water is so blue. Hey, and clear. It’s amazing. This whole landscape is amazing. This is our mission for the next couple of days to find some more natural places that we can get to. I wonder what these signs say actually. What does it say? The river will start to increase water rapidly. Oh, yeah. So, because there’s mountains surrounding us, if it rains, they get flash flooding. I love the way that things translate um from Japanese, it always sounds like a haiku. It goes attention. I suddenly increase water. There is something. The sky is getting dark. It starts to rain. Yeah. The w wateriness increases. If there is such, please get away from the river immediately. So, I know on our last video we’re a little bit confused about the whole road station thing, if we’re actually allowed to sleep there or not. So, we’ve done a lot of Googling since then, and the general consensus is it’s not like a campsite in the way that Australians would think of a free restside stop. You can’t set up an awning, set up chairs, anything like that. But, as long as you’re quiet and respectful and basically like get in and out as quickly as you can and just sleep there, it’s totally fine. If you’re traveling Japan as well and you want to make use of them, just search, you can search either road station on Google Maps or Mitchi Noeki. They’ll just come all on Google Maps and they’re everywhere. But there’s about a thousand in Japan. That one was so cool though to have a little foot bath. That’s just I can’t get over it. And are you seeing this scenery right now? That’s lovely. Have a look at it. It feels so intimidating driving in it. Oh yeah, especially with this big beast. I don’t know how they have stopped landslides from happening because we’re we’re currently we’re next to well we’re next to the biggest mountain I’ve ever seen. Bigger than Tasmania. How have they built these roads here? It’s incredible. It would have taken years. Look at the river. It’s never the same. I found myself picking Jesus in my bra. What you done to me? Oh, baby. Hey, I wish you [Music] [Music] that I don’t understand how they don’t. One of the main things that we said we didn’t really want to do on this trip was be constantly comparing Japan to Australia. But the fact that we are just driving through the middle of a mountain right now just boggles my mind. How are we? We got to stop the video right now. Google search how do Japan tunnel through mountains. or if I was a man who could cut maybe I could erase the moment you So our main goal for this whole van trip is to get as far away from the cities and feel like we’ve really experienced Japan and done some really unique things. So this morning we have come to one of Japan’s oldest onen villages to cook our breakfast in a natural hotring which I just think is the most unique thing that we’ve ever done especially for breakfast. I know I did say Yunamino Onson is one of the oldest Onson towns in Japan, but did I mention it’s been around for something like 1,800 years? That’s not just old. It’s people soaking here since before your country even existed old. This little village is tucked along the Kumano Cotto Trail, a pilgrimage route that stretches about 70 km through the mountains, connecting ancient shrines and sacred sites. We weren’t quite ready to jump into one of the public baths ourselves yet. We’re still working up the courage. So instead, we found a nice peaceful onen for our ex. So see this nail here? Yeah. Yep. That’s it. We got it. We were told to set a timer for 11 minutes. Am I all steamy? Yeah. [Music] They’re ready, I think. I hope. Is that enough, do you think? I don’t know. How long did the guy do it? About that long. Yeah. Okay, there you go. Breakfast. Boiled eggs. It worked. I don’t know why I was doubting it. That water was so hot. That’s proper. That’s boiled perfectly. So good. So this morning we are having a very fusion breakfast. Ancient Japanese boiled onen eggs and the food from our culture. Ao toast. I wonder if it will um taste Yeah. mineralally. I’ll give it the first taste here possibly. It smells extra eggy. Does it? Ooh. Good. Perfect. That was really nice. That was actually It actually just tastes like an egg, guys. to to be honest. M on an egg. [Music] We’re doing it. We’re doing it. We’re going to a nonsen. Well, we’re going to a private one just to ease ourselves into it. And then maybe by the time we leave Japan, I would have done a public one. Jack unfortunately has tattoos, so he can’t go to a public one. Sorry. But um Oh my gosh, I’m excited. We have no idea what to expect. We’ve just pulled up to somewhere that I found on Google Maps that says it’s got um private ones and I think you pay for your entry on a vending machine. So, we’ll see how we go. Wish us luck. We’ll see how we go. I’m mostly interested to go do it because of the minerals in the water. I want to see how I feel after. Yeah, Jack’s been watching lots of things about longevity and how old people live in Japan. And there’s people here right on islands in Japan that live to like 116 years old and they look like they’re 60. So if you see Jack Jack just in onson’s 24/7 and drinking green tea every single day from now on, you’ll know that’s why my hair might grow back. All right, let’s go. We have no Did you already say we have no clue of what we’re doing? Yeah, we’re just going to give it our best go. We’re going to wing it and see what happens. probably end up in a public on some tickets. [Music] All right, we’re on our way. We’re on our way to our private onen. We’re getting the VIP treatment. He’s walking us to our onen. I think it’s because we have absolutely no clue what we’re doing, but they’re all so nice about it. We just walk in and we’re like, “Help, help.” Show them a photo. But we’re going there now. The door is locked and we are in. Welcome to our private onen, guys. Okay, so I read up on this because this is an experience that I really wanted to have while I was here. Before you get in your naturally heated hotring here, you shower here and like really scrub yourself, get really really clean before you get in. And then you can just soak in the middle. I wonder how hot it is. Oh, it’s perfect. There’s nothing wrong with that. All right, ready? This is what van life needs all the time. All right, let’s go. Let’s do it. I feel sorry doing this. Doesn’t make sense. You could do it and then it’ll be normal. She’s naked in public. Oh, I’ve still got my jocks on. I’m not actually naked. You got it. You have to. My jocks are off. We’re fully naked. I can’t believe it. Do you feel Don’t you feel like someone’s watching? kind of I scouted the whole area. How do you know? No one watching. Oh, well, we’re just showering. It’s not anything weird that we’re doing. Like, give me a towel. It’s cold. Oh, you sit on these and then you wash yourself up. Yeah. All right. And use the bucket as well. Okay. Oh, my chair is breaking. Oh, I sat on a bucket. That feels so good. Oh, naked bump. is on plastic chair. It’s not getting any easier. Maybe it’s not even like a relaxing thing. It’s just the comedown from the adrenaline of being naked in Why are we covering our bits? There’s no one here. Feels so free. Oh wow, it’s so hot. It’s too hot. Oh my god. Okay, I’m going in. I’m sitting on the bear rock. Leave my bottle. That is hot. E, it gives you like adrenaline rush. It’s too hot. I think it’s too hot. There’s no way you’re out. I’m going to come out like a tomato. That was the best experience I’ve had in a long time. What an experience. I feel so relaxed and clean. Oh my gosh. We’ve done a lot of things, guys, but that there is up there with some of the coolest things I’ve done. Yeah. And I was very hesitant to do it. You were. And uh I’m so happy I did it. And I’m going to do it tomorrow and the next day. I feel ready for a public one almost. No. But I feel like that is the whole reason that I like to travel is to like open my mind up to things that in my brain I’m conditioned to think no getting naked with strangers is wrong. You don’t do it. But it’s just so normal here. It’s completely normal. Like there’s people going into the public ones and it’s not even questioned. It’s not even like it’s it’s completely normal. And my whole body’s got this feeling of a tingling sensation almost like it’s I read up on it and apparently it opens your blood cells which creates more oxygen or something. So and it helps the circulation of your blood. So it was very hot. It was so hot I couldn’t even I thought it was hot and I usually have like skin shredding showers. It took me a while to get in there but after a while I was in there. It was like addictive as well because you would get out for a bit and then you go I want to go back in. cuz we originally thought you get an hour time slot and we were like, “Oh, we’ll be done in like 20 minutes.” And we stayed for an hour. Yeah. But and also the whole time you still have that feeling of, “All right, I’m naked. There could be like for some reason we were holding our hands over our private parts.” Well, because there was like a fivetory hotel next to us as well. So like someone could have a window. Yeah, it was weird. Like subconsciously you have it in your head, someone’s watching me, but no one’s watching. So it was pretty cool. Anyway, there’s our new experience for the day. There you go. Uh let’s keep going in this beautiful, beautiful part of Japan. Oh my gosh, it’s stunning. [Music] We come down to this river, guys. It’s a special kind of river. I’ll let Megan explain it to you. Oh, that’s really cold. It’s cold. Yeah. So, I’m pretty sure what you can do here is you can bring a shovel and then you can dig here and I guess the water from underneath the ground is the water that’s running all through that onto the village. So, that’s hot. And then you come and you take a dip in here and it’s cold. So, you can alternate. Well, maybe I’m going to dig a hole. Yeah. Say that a little bit. Cuz people over there are laying down in these huge holes they’ve dug and it just looks glorious. I just want to feel if it’s hot. Ready? How you going to dig? With my hands. Oh, okay. [Applause] Yeah. Look, I think you need a shovel. You definitely need a shovel. But it’s got that it’s got that uh eggy smell, so it must just be just under the surf. You can see these guys living the dream over there. Even if you don’t do it, it’s still so beautiful here. [Music] Wow. I’m calling it. This is the most stunning road that we have ever driven on. Yeah. Would you say it beats It beats everything. It’s next level. We said we weren’t going to try and compare and rank stuff, but I’ve just been swearing. It doesn’t make sense. We are just surrounded by mountains and then the most clear, blue, bright, vibrant water I’ve ever seen in my entire life. This river running. Oh my gosh. Stunning. just don’t get it. So, we’re making our way south to Shingu and we keep going Shingu. Shingu. Do you think Pingu came from Japan? Sounds Japanese. Hey, definitely. But I found a really, really cheap conveyor belt sushi. So, we’re going to go there because we actually have dinner. So, just a little snack before we get back on the road. Yep. What the Look at the water. Love is going to reach your heart. And my damn lion love is going to reach your heart. [Applause] And my damn lion love is going to reach your heart. Okay, guys. We just got back from uh sushi and we ended up eating 11 plates of sushi. We The whole plan was to go in there, go to a conveyor belt sushi so we could just have like two each. Yeah. And save money and not eat too much and still eat dinner because we have the esie and our food’s going bad. So, we need to cook dinner. And yeah, 11 plates of sushi later. But it was still only like 20 Australian dollars. Yeah. I don’t know. It’s so cheap, guys. But anyway, we’ve come to this next road station here. We’ve got our motor home parked up, which we were just discussing. We need a name for it. And the name we want for this motor home has to like the the car reminds us of a sumo wrestler. I was trying to think of a name and I was like, it needs to be like Arnold. Oh, Arnold. Ani Arnold Schwarzinger or Anisan. Anisan. The car’s name is Anissan. Oh, the first thing that came to my mind, I was like, what’s a like strong name like Gus? What? What about Jack? We’re going to give you a tour of Arnold Sun because um we promised we would in the last video. So, before we get into the tour, we didn’t let you know last week where we actually got the van from. So, it’s from a company called Samurai Campers. Now, they got franchises all over Tokyo. I think there’s like maybe all over Japan. Sorry. We chose a Saka this time last year or a couple years ago. We used Samurai Campers and we went from Tokyo and they have a huge range of different vans. So, we’ll put a link in the description to their website. Go check them out and give them a follow on Instagram. That would be amazing. Do you want to We tidied up Arnold Sun for you. Yeah. Uh where do we start? I might just quickly give you a little tour outside. There’s not really much to see. You’ve seen it already because the internal fit out’s been done right. So, it’s got a couple of these around the car, but a big one on the other side. They’re actually just blanked out with wood inside because the fit out’s been done custom inside. So, there’s no like storage or anything like that. So, I was going to show you the cockpit, but we got Apple CarPlay up the front and that’s pretty much it. Other than that, it’s just a standard automatic Toyota dino truck, I think it is. Well, Megan Megan didn’t have a clue. Yeah, looking at me. Looking at Megan like she knows. But yeah, it’s it’s pretty standard and it’s just got this huge motor body on it. And Megan’s about to give it to it. It’s pretty impressive. I don’t know what she’s doing now. Well, I was just going to see if we could set up like this. Is this just for outside? We actually haven’t set the Yeah, I think that’s just for outside. Hang on. We’re just going to pack this back up. So, yeah, we have a table for outside. You have so much seating in this van. And underneath all of these is storage as well. We’ve got our esie here, but I’m pretty sure you can option a chest fridge like we did with our last van that we hired from Samurai, which we forgot to this time. You can enter the um huge bonus. What’s it called? The cockpit. Isn’t that I don’t know. The front of the car. You can enter the front of the car from back here and vice versa, which it’s always a thing that we think about traveling Australia in terms of safety, but I don’t think it’s really No, it’s fine here. But it is nice. You sleep better at night. Yeah, for sure. That’s got curtains as well for privacy. And then up here you have a huge queen bed with two windows, a reading light, and USB and USBC chargers up there as well. However, this mattress is a little bit too on the firm side for us. So, we’ve been sleeping on the bunk beds instead, which are so comfy, except we have hit our head about 14 times since we’ve been in here. They also have reading lights on each one and USB and USBC chargers. I really hope that stops later tonight. We forgot to say we’re sleeping near a train, guys. I think they stop at midnight. I hope so. Yeah. Anyway, um we also have storage under the bed as well, which fits our suitcases perfectly. However, we have unpacked. So, I put all of my packing cubes and everything up here because we have heaps and heaps of storage up here. Oh, wow. You’ve really moved in. Yeah. I wasn’t meant to spread out that much. I was supposed to keep it contained, but oh well. We have our kitchen area here with a window and again curtains to cover that. These also Is this the one? Yeah, they got fly screen. Fly screen. Some of them also have the the blackout blinds as well, which is really, really cool. Heaps of bench space for a van like this. And then a microwave in an RV, which we had in the last van that we hired with Samurai as well, which I could not get my head around. And Jack will of course geek out on the electrical system soon. So you can see how we’re running that because that’s really cool as well. More storage under here with all of our cooking stuff. Again, we’ve sort of spread out there a little bit more than we should have. We’ve got running water. Um how many lers again? I’m not sure. Uh anyway, we’ve got fresh water and a gray water tank as well. Show you guys. There’s our tanks there. So we got gray water and a fresh water. And just like with the last vent as well, we were just obsessed with all of the wood paneling and how nice it is. And again, so many lights. So, guys, look at all the switches for lights. You haven’t even turned There’s still more. There’s more. Yeah, more lights. Oh, you got to turn them on. Oh, yeah. They’re all touch. There you go. There’s just a ridiculous amount of lights, which is great for a photographer. It’s so good. Oh, I also forgot over here we have 240. We’ve actually got a second point over there as well on each side. Yeah. And it’s not That’s not good. And also hooks. which I don’t know, just make it feel a little bit more homey. We were planning on buying like a few little extra touches like plants and things like that. But I think we’ll try and keep it as tidy as possible considering how much my bags have exploded in the cupboards. But it’s definitely got that cozy feeling already built into it. We’ve also got an air conditioner and a exhaust fan. These exhaust fans are brilliant. They really suck out the cold air. you’ve been having it on exhaust during the night cuz they’re so silent and it just lets the air flow through the van a lot better. Sometimes when you don’t have a fan in a motor home or a camper van, you can get really stuffy inside and you can really feel it. So, that’s been very nice to have on every night. We’ve also got a diesel heater and we have the coolest electrical system I’ve seen in a motor home for a while. You guys will know that I love my Reny setups. I love electrical systems and I love putting them together. This motor home has 460 amps of lithium battery power, 2000 watt inverter, all the solar controllers on the roof. So, we’ve been running the aircon and it hasn’t even gone under 400 amps of battery. So, they really went all out with this electrical system and it was really cool to see that in Japan, especially it being Reny, the same stuff we use at home was even cooler, right? Yeah. There you go. There’s our motor home. There’s Arm and Sun. It’s actually been amazing. One thing I will say is if you’re going to hire a van like this, make sure you’re a bit confident in driving something so big. Otherwise, go for the highest, the one that you can stand up. I think they call it the uh high roof. Yeah. So, that’s the one I would highly recommend is the highest high roof to go around Japan in. But, but this one is super comfy. Considering we’re in here for an extended period of time, it definitely feels like a home on wheels more than a van. Really? It does. We’re going to cook dinner. We probably should. We have to. It’s in the es. We just ate though. I know. Well, it’s going to go off. We spent the money on it, guys. We got to cook, guys. We said we’re going to cook dinner, but we actually just realized there’s a beach right next to us. So, we’re on the hunt to get to this beach. Found it. Nachi nachy beach. But this is the weirdest entrance to a beach I’ve ever seen. What the heck is going on here? You know what’s really weird? We’re going lower than sea level right now. We’re below the ocean and we’re going to the ocean. Oh my goodness. What? I did not expect this. I did not expect this at all. This is our first Japanese beach that we’re actually going to set foot on. And it’s so quiet. There’s no one here. Are we even in Japan? Have we time travel? Such a contrast to where we were just two days ago in Dom. I can spread my arms out and not touch anyone. See over there, guys? I’m pretty sure I’ve done Look, I’ve done absolutely no research yet, but I’m going to say those are for tidal waves, tsunamis. Sorry. I reckon they’ve built them for tsunamis. I could be so wrong. We’re about to touch our first bit of Japanese water. I mean, it’s all the same water, really, isn’t it? Here we go, guys. It’s boiling. [Music] [Music] Just wo I’ve got some heat for some dinner. We were going to do our eggplant curry from our cookbook and then I was like, “Oh, maybe the pumpkin one.” And then we couldn’t be bothered buying a whole bunch of ingredients. So then we just got curry sauce in a box and some tofu for protein. Okay. Okay. I I think I think I can do that for you. Can I You’re going to chop your finger off. Can I just do it? That is a hard pumpkin. I know. That’s really hard. Why are you doing Oh my gosh. What is going on here? This is the dessert. What? That’ll be plenty of pumpkin if it’s not. Yeah. Okay, that’s burning. Yep, that’s burning. Oh my god, why has this turned into a disaster? I’ll turn it off. Hang on. One ingredient. What is up with this pumpkin? Oh, the knife must be blunt. Obviously, if only we’re in a country that was really well known for having good knives. Hey, if only we’re in a country that was known for having really accessible and nice food that’s already made for you. I wouldn’t eat that. That’d be yucky. It’s all right. Disgusting. Delicious. This is so weirdly nostalgic for our best trip. I just love the rice. There is no chance in the world I can eat with these metal chopsticks. Why not? There is absolutely no chance. Oh, they’re a bit more difficult, aren’t they? They’re really slippery. If I’m being totally honest, it’s not nice. It does not taste nice at all. I don’t know what we’ve concocted up here. We tried too many different things. But not good.

We have officially begun our van life travels across Japan! This week we quickly learn that there are A LOT of new and completely unique experiences that we are going to have on this road trip.

🚐 Check out Samurai Campers for van hire across Japan:
https://samuraicampers.com
(We hired ours from Osaka but they also have pickup locations in Tokyo, Hokkaido and Fukuoka)

📍 Vlog locations:
1. Totsukawago Roadside Station
2. Yunomine Onsen
3. Watarase Onsen (Private Open-Air Bath)
4. Kawayu Onsen, Oto River
5. Hama-Sushi, Shingu
6. Nachi Beach
7. Road Station Nachi

Nara & Wakayama Prefectures, Kansai Region

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#roadtrip #japan #vanlife

Chapters:
0:00 Intro
0:32 Most unique free camp EVER
4:00 Road Station / Michi-No-Eki Explanation
6:11 Yunomine Onsen
8:34 Our first Onsen experience 😳
14:26 The Japan countryside is BEAUTIFUL
18:06 RV Camper tour
25:25 Nachi Beach
27:17 Dinner