TofuguTV Season 1.5, Or 2, Or 1

When we go back this time, we’re going as a team. None of this “take footage of myself Survivorman style” ridiculousness. There will be two people on camera (Viet & Hashi) and we’re going to have great equipment (5d, 7d, plus more side dongles and widgemawoozles than you can shake a tripod at). We’ve also been practicing quite a bit over the last month trying to hone our craft and learn how to make a documentary style show. I hope it really shows in this show, because we really, really want to make something a lot more professional than what we’ve been doing in the past.

So, I’m considering the last Season (which isn’t even all published yet) a test-run. So, it’s like Season 0.5, or something like that. I learned a lot from that trip and want to apply that knowledge and more to another month of shooting, and this time there will be multiple cameramen.

New Places!

We only have a few places really planned out, but they’re big deals. The first scheduled place we’ll be heading to the Snow Festival in Hokkaido to see the snow sculptures, ice sculptures, ice bars, and giant snow slides (will have to take multiple shots of this until we get it right / I’ve had enough slide time).

The second scheduled place is the big Yuki Gassen tournament also in Hokkaido. That’s basically just a big professional snowball fighting contest. I’m pretty stoked. I’m also hoping one of the teams is short a player due to some kind of “unfortunate” accident… *cough, cough*

On top of the scheduled places, we have many unscheduled places we plan to go to as well. So many of them are places you’ve probably never heard of or dreamed that they even existed. I’ve been keeping a giant list, so there’ll be more than we could ever hope to go to in our time there. I’m sure you’ll hear more about these places at a later date.

Old Places!

There are also some places I want to go back to. Of course, there’s Cat Island, Japan. All those Cat Island sequel titles aren’t all that ridiculous anymore, are they? I’ve gathered that you folks pretty much love cats more than almost anything.

There are a few places I want to refilm from Season 1, too. Places like Jigokudani (where monkeys go to hang out in hot springs) and Okunoshima (Rabbit Island) come to mind, but there might be a couple of other places that we’ll re-go to as well.

With all the practice we’ve done, the new equipment, and not to mention an actual crew… well, I just think some places deserve another shot. No pun intended.

Research & Resources

It’s not all fun and games, though. I also am planning to do research and collect resources for posts, TextFugu lessons, and more. Lots of opportunity to take pictures and video that can be used to help you to learn Japanese. No better place to do it than Japan, don’t you think? Hopefully you’ll start to see these particular fruits of labor sometime in March or April.

When We’ll Be Going

We’re going to spend the month of February gallivanting around taking video of things in Japan. For the most part we don’t have a schedule and won’t plan things until the day or two before, so we won’t really know where we’ll be and when.

This also means that things will be on a limited schedule here on Tofugu. Posts are getting cut back to 5 a week (sometimes more, never less) and responses to email will probably be slowed down. We’ll try to keep things running as normally as possible, but since we’re all traveling around at the same time it’s going to be a little more difficult than usual.

So, that’s it. Just letting you know what’s up. We’re all very excited and we’ve all been working very hard getting ready for this. I hope we can do a good job filming and editing to bring you a taste of Japan that you probably haven’t seen or heard of before.

P.S. And, in case you wanted it (we all know you did), our wonderful artist Aya has put together a desktop background based off the header image on this post. Enjoy!

1280 x 800, 1440 x 900, 1680 x 1050, 2560 x 1440

All that being said, of course one of the places I visited for TofuguTV trip was Koyasan. While it’s not weird, crazy, or a mix of the two, I couldn’t just not go here, right? Here’s a short episode all about that that trip, as well as some of the history on Koyasan itself. The Gakuranman was also along for the ride.

Mt. Koya is located in Wakayama Prefecture. Most people access it via the Osaka area. It’s a couple-hour train / cable-car / bus ride to get here, but totally worth it in my book.

View Larger Map

The first person to settle here was the monk known as Kukai (also known as Kobo Daishi). He was the founder of Shingon Buddhism and decided to make this the main headquarters for his religion. Why? Because it was in a 800m high valley amid the lotus shaped terrain of the eight mountain peaks surrounding it. There are currently 120 temples, a pagoda that represents the central point of a Mandala that both covers Koya and Japan, the head temple of Koyasan Shingon Buddhism, and Japan’s largest graveyard. Oh, and did I mention that it’s a UNESCO World Heritage site? I think it’s deserving.

There are a few reasons why people come here. Maybe you’re visiting a grave. Maybe you’re just here for the scenery. Or, perhaps you’re here to stay the night in some monastery lodging. Most of you will be doing the third one (and if you’re not, I highly recommend it). You will stay in traditional Japanese-style lodging, eat incredible meals (Shojin Ryori style), and possibly even get to participate in one of the temple’s ceremonies.

Fire Ceremony, very early in the morning

Shojin Ryori food (best vegan food you’ll ever eat)

For me, though, it’s all about the graveyard. I’m no ghost hunter or anything, in fact it’s really the opposite. I’ve never been to a graveyard that felt so… good. Like, there’s happiness everywhere. It doesn’t feel like you’re surrounded by the remains of tens of thousands of dead people, that’s for sure.

I think a big part is the discovery of everything, though. A lot of the graveyard is super old. Moss is growing on everything, and many of the tombstones are falling apart. That’s all part of the beauty of it, though. Things are disappearing, changing, and then getting added to again. It’s a nonstop rotation of taking and giving that makes this place so interesting. No matter how many times you go you’ll always discover something new (either because it is new or because you just didn’t notice it before… did I mention this place is huge?).

Don’t forget the Buddhist Deity known as Stitch too… Crazy thing is, he was there the first time I visited Koya (2005) as well as the second time (2010). I was surprised I could find him again, not to mention that he was there at all in the first place.

So, I know a lot of you have been to Koyasan before. What was your favorite part? What would you recommend that people do when they’re there? Even if you’re not into all this nature/Buddhism/graveyard stuff, at least visit the most accessible bathroom in all of Japan…

What is that man doing to that other man????

Check out the official Koya site for more information on visiting and having an awesome time.

With a name like “The Site Of Reversible Destiny” you know that it has to be good… or at the very least, weird. For the third episode of TofuguTV (you should watch the video above, before continuing on), my buddy Hiroyuki takes me to Yoro Park, an “experience park” opened in 1995. The theme of the park is to “encountering the unexpected,” and I gotta say, they did a pretty good job. Pretty much everything about it was a pleasant / mildly hazardous surprise.

Let’s Make Things A Little Dangerous

So, I know this whole park was designed by artists (Shusaku Arakawa and Madeline Gins), which is going to make it all awesome and artistic, but as I walked through the Site Of Reversible Destiny, all I could think was… “did someone just want to make a dangerous park for children to play in?”

At the entrance and office, they offer you a helmet. That ought to say something about this place right there. But beyond that, it’s full of steep hills, high places, pitch dark rooms, creepy clown music, and pretty deep holes with trees in them (and guard rails only part way around).

Not shown: The seven children stuck at the bottom of the hole.

But, I imagine the danger was all part of the experience. What fun is an experience park if you don’t get to experience experiences? Half the fun is climbing up things and feeling your way through pitch black rooms. The danger was fun, but that’s only part of the picture. There’s the art side as well.

The best way to describe things, I think, would be to go through a place at a time. I didn’t take pictures of all the locations, but I’ll write here about the ones I did do. For a list of all the locations, you can check them out on the Yoro Park website.

Insect Mountain Range

The Insect Mountain Range is a tall pile of rocks that sit right in front of you as you come out of the entrance building. According to the Yoro Park website, it was “carefully constructed in accordance with Arakawa’s detailed direction.” He wanted to show us that humans don’t have to be subjugated to the natural world. We can, in fact, create “alternative nature” instead.

Oh, and why is this location called the “Insect Mountain Range”? Apparently it’s because of the way people clamber up the rocks like insects in search of water (pictured above).

The best part of the Insect Mountain Range, however, is that you get a nice view of everything else. I didn’t take a picture of it (you can see it in the video, though), but it’s fairly high up, at least when it comes to a pile of rocks. Right in front of it was the Critical Resemblance House, which we’ll look at next.

Critical Resemblance House

The Critical Resemblance House is part house, part maze. The roof is made up of Gifu Prefecture (that’s the prefecture Yoro Park is in) and scattered about are pieces of household furniture. You can see it in the video, but there are things like desks, ovens, refridgerators, toilets, beds, and so on just jutting out of walls and sticking out of the ceiling. It was definitely pretty weird, and fun to work our way through.

Exactitude Ridge

The Exactitude Ridge consists of multiple parts, actually. There’s a bridge-like thing sticking out of the ground that just stops and goes nowhere (see, you’re not alone Sarah!), but then there’s also a small structure that is a reproduction of part of the Critical Resemblance House.

If you make your way inside (you have to crawl), there are holes in the wall (some require a ladder) that give different perspectives of the surrounding landscape. It’s funny how a shape can change your view on things.

Although this seems like a small thing, I think these little holes were probably one of my favorite parts. I really like things that make you look at things in a different way than you’re used to. It’s refreshing to get a different perspective on life (and/or the surrounding landscape, at the very least).

The Great Golf Course Wall Of China

Dominating approximately half of the park was this giant wall that looked like the Great Wall Of China and a golf course had a baby. After leaving the Exactitude Ridge, you’re given the opportunity to scale the wall, all the way to the end.

The wind was strong that day, and the sides didn’t feel all that high… but I guess if they were it wouldn’t be much of an experience (you wouldn’t be able to see too well, and you wouldn’t get as much excitement out of it).

Hiroyuki posing on the wall. Little does he know, winter is coming.

The walkway comfortably fits one person, and uncomfortably fits two (for the couple times we had to squeeze past other people… of course the only time we ran into someone else was on the wall… twice).

You’re able to walk all the way to the end of the wall, where there’s an area to look around and see your surroundings. We could even see Nagoya Station (or, the two big towers, at least), though it was quite far away.

From the wall, though, you can really see the inner area of the park. Inside the park is actually a bunch of hidden Japans… inside Japans… inside Japan. This is the kind of thing dreams inside dreams are made of.

Geographical Ghost

The Geographical Ghost, apparently, has a counterpart known as the “Cleaving Hall” which is apparently even more pitch black. I thought this one was dark, but it seems the other is darker.

Anyways, to get in here you go through a bright yellow entrance that leads into the ground. Soon it becomes dark, and you have to feel your way around dead ends and through skinny passage ways. Eventually, you get to the end: A skylight of Japan. Definitely pretty cool and better in person.

Sadly, though, I didn’t see the “Cleaving Hall.” That sounds like it would have been a lot of fun too.

Destiny House

The Destiny House, I’d say, is less like a house than any of the other places claiming to be a house. It’s on top of a giant map of Japan (in the middle, apparently). It’s supposed to represent ruins of an ancient building. Under the glass (you can kind of see it in the picture) is furniture… once again in a totally useless place. If there’s one recurring theme that Yoro Park keeps bringing up, it’s definitely “useless furniture placement.”

Kinesthetic Pass

The Kinesthetic Pass (see the poorly placed furniture in the middle, farther back?) resides in the area of the big map that represents Kyuushuu (the most Southwest of the four main islands of Japan). Although the furniture in this area is more useable (mostly because they’re not halfway through a wall or ceiling), everything is on a big incline meaning it’s terribly difficult to stand up once you’ve sit down. Everything definitely feels a bit “off” when you’re here because of all the angles. It’s quite fun.

The Other Parts That Will Reverse Your Destiny

Like I mentioned before, there are other interesting things in Yoro Park just waiting to be discovered and experienced. It’s one of those places where if you come here two or even three times, you’ll still find something new and interesting.

There are also plenty of places in the video (top of the page) that show up that don’t show up in this article. There are also places that don’t show up in either (like the “Cleaving Hall,” “The Gate Of Non-Dying,” and the “Trajectory Membrane Gate.” All of them obviously have awesome names, so if you’re the type of person that judges an experience by its name, you should definitely go to Yoro Park someday.

Getting To Yoro Park

The name of Yoro Park in Japanese is 養老天命反転地 (ようろうてんめいはんてんち) … quite a mouthful, but useful if you’re looking for directions on how to get there. Most likely (I’m assuming) you’ll be coming from Nagoya-Eki. From here it’ll probably take you about an hour and a half (by train) plus maybe a little bit more if you take your time walking. You’ll want to stop at Yoro-eki. There’s gourds everywhere, you can’t miss it.

Gourds must seriously be a thing here, though. There’s even a welcome sign written in Gourds… Someone ought to make a Gourd Font.

Anyways, thanks for watching! I hope you enjoyed this episode. I’m putting more time in my routine to work on these, so hopefully much less of a wait for the next one. See you next time!

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It’s been a long time coming, but I’ve finally finished part 2 of Cat Island for TofuguTV. Whew, I can’t tell you how much of a relief it is! Now I can move on to things like monkeys, rabbits and deer… or *gasp* perhaps something totally not-animal related. There were a few of those, believe it or not. The video for Cat Island Part 2 is right there up above at the top of this post, but if you want to see pictures or read a little bit more about what we did, keep on going.

Finding The Cats

It took us half the day to get to the part of the island that actually had cats. Sadly, the first cats we came across were being taken up and hogged by a couple of tourists. They liked taking pictures of cats, which is why they came here

They were having a good time so we didn’t want to bother them for too long and we headed down the road into town to find more cats.

We ran into a store where the other cat-tourist was hanging out, also taking pictures. He was more friendly than the other two cat-tourists and talked with us for a while. There were a lot of fun cats around here, including these ones.

Shinnosuke Instagrammed a shot of the store we just left, then we headed down the road.

Then we headed down the street where we, of course, came across more cats.

This last cat was my favorite of all the cats on the island. We got to see him (her?) several times as we walked around the town. Definitely oen of the more distinct cats, and it had a really cool grumpy look on its face all the time. Chalk me up as a fan of grumpy cats, for some reason…

From here we made our way to the ocean, where we saw a sign to Manga Island.

Manga island was made by Shotaro Ichinomori, a famous mangaka who did things like Cyborg 009 and Kamen Rider. You can actually stay in Manga Island. It’s really just a bunch of buildings that are shaped like cats. I wonder what they do with the ear space on the inside…

We made our way down the hill we had to climb to get here.

It was time to go figure out where the ferry would be picking us up, just so we’d know where to go. If we missed the ferry, we’d be stuck here overnight (not a terrible thing, but lodging was sparse). The ferry was only coming to the island twice per day. Once in the morning and once in the afternoon.

The dock was pretty neat. Unfortunately I heard this is the area that got destroyed by the tsunami, really messing up their fishing industry :( There’s a fund drive going to help them rebuild (and to help feed cats). To donate, you will have to call the organizer (and probably need to be able to speak Japanese). The phone number is 080-2810-2914, if you wanted to help. More info on the help-project here.

We hung out in the nearby park for a little bit, trying to figure out what to do from here.

Watch out, cat! We decided to get something to eat (we were pretty hungry at this point) so we went back up to the store. Good chance to hang out with some cats and get some food, too.

Shinnosuke was a fan of cats.

Here’s the store front, in case you wanted to go.

Fed the cats some cat food. Shinnosuke’s in the background filming.

This cat thinks my backpack is comfortable… or at least the shade is cooling.

I love this green color on the stairs. Reminds me of old copper things. Kind of nostalgic.

We finished our food and started making our way over to the dock where the ferry would come. Guess what!? We ran into more cats.

Even got to see my favorite cat again!

Shinnosuke’s showing us his famous no-look camera technique.

Cool! I wish we saw this map at the beginning and not the end :(

A couple other folks also catching the ferry. They were Tashirojima citizens. Can’t you tell by their age? :/

We headed back to Ishinomaki via the ferry, then made our way back to Tokyo area, stopping to get some Ramen along the way. Oh man, it was tasty.

Cat Island Tashirojima was a lot of fun. Definitely peaceful and a nice atmosphere. If you’re into cats, then it’s the kind of place you’ll almost certainly enjoy. It takes a bit to get out there, but if you time things right you can spend the night and enjoy the island for a bit longer.

If you want to go, I’d probably recommend waiting for a few more months. Maybe 6? The whole area was right next to the earthquake zone and things got hit pretty hard. When you do go, though, definitely spend some money and help out the economy there! I’m sure the people (and the cats) will appreciate it!

If you haven’t seen Cat Island Part 1, you can do so here.

Want to know about future episodes of TofuguTV? Subscribe on YouTube, follow on Twitter, of Like on Facebook for all the latest info! Thanks much for watching, I hope you enjoyed! Also, thanks for waiting for part 2. Sorry for all the trolling about it :P

They look like they belong together, no?

I got to stay in some pretty sweet places while shooting TofuguTV stuff, but I gotta say this was one of the coolest. I stayed in two capsule hotels. One sucked, and one was awesome. This is the awesome one. It was like Steve Jobs decided to stop making iPhones and iPads, and open a hotel chain. He’d say things like “This capsule hotel is our thinnest ever.” Or just plain stick with “Staying here is magical.” And I gotta say, it kind of was magical.

Capsule Hotel “9h”

9h (ナインアワーズ) Capsule Hotel is a very modern twist on the normally grungy, tiny, not-all-that-great capsule hotel scene going on in Japan. If I were a drunk salaryman looking for a place to stay for a few hours between overtime shifts (or between my binge drinking and my overtime shift) I’d stay here over anywhere else. It’s convenient, it’s clean, and it just feels good being here.

Taken by Gakuranman from Gakuranman.com (awesome blog! Go take a look).

Just like a lot of capsule hotels, you pay by the hour. Depending on when you’re there, it can be either 900 yen (base fee) + 300 yen/hour, or 900 yen base fee + 400 yen/hour. If you stay for around 9 hours (that’s 30 minutes of getting ready to sleep, 8 hours of sleeping, and then 30 minutes to get ready to go) then you’re probably going to pay around $50-$60, which isn’t all that bad if you compare it to most hotels (though a lot of hostels will be cheaper, just not as cool).

Everything is streamlined really well, though. You go inside, take off your shoes (and put them in a locker), go shower / wash up, go to your capsule to sleep, wake up, wash up, then check out. It’s all rather easy and simple, and there are signs all over the floors telling you what to do (whew).

By Gakuranman

After you’ve washed up and checked in, you go to your capsule to sleep. In this particular capsule hotel, there are men’s and women’s floors (though lots of capsule hotels don’t allow women). You can see which capsules are being occupied (below) by the slippers and whether or not the shade is drawn (looks like this room is pretty full).

Me and the The Gakuranman stayed here together. You can see how there’s two slippers nearby because we’re sleeping in the same capsule no slippers too close to each other because we were staying in capsules that weren’t the same capsules.

You’re given all the things you need to sleep, too. You get a toothbrush, towels, and even sleeping clothes (which, sadly, aren’t black turtle necks and jeans) that are really nice (I wish I could’ve bought a set). You even get some 9h branded water. That’s how hardcore they are here.

They do not bill you by the hour for water, thankfully

Some futuristic PJs

Private showers that lead into the public bath (i.e. after you take a shower you keep on going through the shower to the bath – it’s awesome!)

There’s even 9h branded shampoo, conditioner, and soap

Wake-Up Alarm System

Gakuranman looking to see how late it was. Time to go Haikyoing!

One of my favorite things is the alarm system. Since it’d wake everyone up if you had sound alarms (bleep bleep bleeeep!) 9h came up with a cool solution…. they us light to wake you up. Like a big old flash of light. You can see this happening in the video below:

[yframe url='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWKxBCMwwkY']

Totally didn’t wake me up because I suck at waking up to any kind of alarm, but still pretty sweet nonetheless. I’m sure normal people wake up to it.

You Should Go

Click on the map to see this in Google Maps

It was a lot of fun and worth experiencing! If you’re visiting Japan, chances are you’ll head to Kyoto (at least if you’re doing touristy things), so you might as well hit it up. Right next to an ampm, too, and ampm in Japan is awesome (in America not so much)! Hope you enjoy!

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Okay, I gotta be honest. I love gimmicky things. It’s why I buy “As Seen On TV” products (like the thing that attaches to your shower floor and is like a car wash for your feet). This restaurant is fine, I think. The food itself isn’t spectacular, or anything. I mean, it’s good … I enjoyed the food … but the real reason I go here is because I get to catch my own fish, with a fishing pole, and then tell the server what I want done with it (sashimi all the way… it’s just too fresh not to!).

ざうお (Zauo)

The restaurant Zauo is in multiple places around Japan, so it’s not like it’s hard to find. They aren’t super common, but if you go visit Japan, there’s a good chance you could find one if you spent the time to look for it.

Zauo locations, according to Google Maps (click through to get locations / directions)

One thing I didn’t know (and something that Google’s Japanese IME helped me to notice) is that ざうお (zauo) turns into the kanji 座魚, which isn’t actually a word (as far as I can find) but does consist of two kanji that pretty much sum up this restaurant… “Sit” and “Fish.”

That’s pretty much what you do. You sit on giant boats that are inside aquariums (or a side room, also right next to the aquarium) and you fish for your meal.

The fish are pretty much as dumb as fish, and bite within seconds of you putting the bait in. Mmmm. Then, the server comes over and asks you what you want to be made from the fish you just caught. There are quite a few choices, but like I mentioned before it’s all about getting something raw to take advantage of the freshness.

Pshh, yeah, you thought you could get away. Now I’m eating you.

View from the side – you can see the side rooms on the left and one of the “boats” on the right

View from the top. I see you fish…

If you’re in Japan, check this place out. Fun times! Next up for TofuguTV is Cat Island Part 2. Next week. I hope.

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