Name: Is this Japan's Most Mouthwatering Ramen?
Uploaded: 2020-03-24T09:26:34.000Z
Duration: 19 min 18 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Adverbs of degree

So in the winter months in Japan you can pretty much draw a line right down the middle of

the country separating the part which gets lots of snow and the other side

And today we’re on the very snowy side going to the town of Kitakata, a town which has

the highest number of Ramen shops per capita of anywhere in Japan.

But we’re not going to get to Kitakata until tomorrow as it’s quite a journey from Sendai

over to north Fukushima especially given the heavy snowfall.

But I am joined by a man who is dressed in a jumper that looks like a bear suit or something.

No you don’t really have to comment on that because you don’t have any sense of fashion.

Yeah and you’re the kind of person who has a hole in their sock.

I do have a hole in my sock but that’s British fashion sense.

Along our journey across the snowy north to enjoy a bowl of Kitakata ramen, we’ll

be stopping off at two nearby towns; Aizu Wakamatsu - a town nicknamed Samurai city,

as it’s home to one of Japan’s top samurai schools.

It’s here we’ll also be getting lost in a crazy looking temple inspired by Leonardo Da Vinci

And to catch a good night’s sleep we’ll be dropping into a 200 year old inn, in Yonezawa

before waking up early tomorrow morning to dive into our ramen.

And as per usual Ryotaro is being worryingly vague about his master plan.

So we’re at the Nishinkan, it’s one of the most famous dojo’s in the whole of Japan

This was the school that young Samurai would go to.

Established in 1803 the Nishinkan school turned children into elite Samurai warriors

including the legendary Byakkotai warriors or White Tiger Force; a reserve unit of Samurai

I must say there’s an epic sense of scale to this school, it does feel pretty grand

You can get a sense that some pretty rich kids learnt how to do some pretty crazy things here.

Move over Robin Hood. He’s Robin dickhead.

No matter how hard he tries it’s just the same result. He just cannot hit the target.

That’s not important. Winning isn’t important. It’s taking part that counts.

No matter what happens now I’m going to hit it. Because if I miss, I’m going to

use clever film CGI film trickery to make it look like I hit it.

Oh I hit it! That was a really good shot.

Did you see that? The way it hit the bullseye! That was brilliant. Let’s go and look at a temple.

So this rather strange and bizarre looking building behind me is called the Sazaedo temple.

It’s a Buddhist temple that was built in 1796 and it’s the only temple in the world

to have the rather crazy and wacky design that it’s got inside it.

So the temple has a hexagonal design with two spiral staircases; one going up and one

It’s pretty cool because you never actually meet people who are going up or down on the

opposing staircase. They’re completely divided.

The idea being that as you’re praying to the 33 gods that are in the temple, you’re

never getting it congested. You’re never getting in the way of people going up and down.

It’s pretty smart design. I’ve never seen anything quite like this. I’ve never seen

so much thought been put into a temples design.

It’s feels a bit like a theme park ride. Because you can hear the footsteps on the

opposing spiral above and below but you can’t see anyone.

It’s fun. It’s like a horror house or something.

And speaking of horror - look it’s Ryotaro.

Standing on the crossing over bridge. This is the bridge that leads you back down over

So Leonardo Da Vinci designed this castle in France and they used the exact same system

But how did it get to Japan? How’d it happen?

Right so the design of this castle in France somehow got to the Akita Clan.

And the Lord actually had it and the Monk who built this temple saw the design and got

And he stole the idea and then he actually built this place.

So from Leonardo Da Vinci’s pencil to the mountains of North Japan.

So I’ve just walked around the back of the temple and there’s a monument here which

it turns out was donated by Benito Mussolini in 1928.

Mussolini was inspired by the story of the Byakkotai Samurai warriors, a group of twenty

16-17 years olds who took their lives in a battle in the 1800’s after believing their

And after hearing the story he donated this column from Pompei - one of three columns

that existed in Pompei - to the town and it still stands here to this day.

It’s pretty odd to think this is here, especially with the inscription on the back which reads:

"Under the authority of Ancient Rome may this pillar stand as proof of the greatness

Now Fascism didn’t last thousands of years, it lasted about ten minutes.

But I can see what he was getting at by donating this. It’s a testament to the loyalty of the warriors.

There’s also another one from Nazi Germany here. I probably won’t put that one on camera.

But it’s amazing to think it’s still here. You couldn’t get things like that out of

Pompei now, given it’s a World Heritage site.

So this is Sauce Katsudon, the local staple food of Aizu Wakamatsu.

Katsudon is one of my favourite dishes; breaded pork on a bed of rice.

Here in Aizu Wakamatsu they take that wonderful dish and drench it in about a gallon of Worcester sauce.

Look at the size and scale of this. Ryotaro ordered this for me.

You call this normal but in this restaurant this is mini sauce Katsudon.

And this is the ordinary normal Katsudon.

It’s like a bucket of food. You could feed half of Okinawa with this.

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Is this Japan's Most Mouthwatering Ramen?

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