Name: I Spent a Day in a Hidden Mountain Village in Japan
Uploaded: 2025-08-14T17:50:58.000Z
Duration: 12 min 51 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...

Transition words & phrases

This area is an area of Japanese legend and I am pretty excited because today's video is sponsored by EA.

And we'll come back to that because there's both a location and an item that we're going to need for today's adventure first.

It's a wooden tag specific to this area that can...

A while back I did this adventure where we traveled across Japan doing new live streams, videos, adventures, hikes every single day.

And the final major stop on that adventure was this once hidden mountain hot spring village of Gero.

But the unfortunate thing is the stream quality that day was absolutely terrible.

It looked like I shot the entire thing on an actual potato.

And so I've wanted to come back ever since, share a little bit more of the area's history, and hopefully do it a little more justice.

Right now I am just making my way out of this mountain hike through a shrine into a temple at the very top of Gero itself.

I think it should be right down this way.

You can see why I wanted to come back, right?

This little morning walk is already so much better than a grainy pixelated live stream.

But it begs the question, why would EA, a games company, want to sponsor a Tokyo Lens video?

What turns out the Tokyo Lens aesthetic is right up their alley, and they wanted to share the release of their new Wild Hearts game that just launched.

It's like if you were to take an area like this, almost straight out of old feudal Japan, which is already beautiful by the way, and turn it into this visually spectacular mystical version, and then on top of that turn it into an action-packed adventure game of And this is where they got me hunting monsters that in the game are called Kemono.

And this is the spot I was searching for.

This is where our adventure begins today.

I thought it would not only be an amazing match to the look and feel of this area, but also to the fact that this seemingly simple onsen town in the mountains actually has a very rich history.

Even this Onsenji Temple right here has an amazing backstory I can't wait to share with you.

This town of Gero was once a hidden rest stop for warriors.

Samurai and samurai leaders would come here to hide out, because this was one of the only places in Japan that had onsen or a hot spring running day and night.

And because the area of Gifu, the prefecture that we're in right now, is over 90% mountain, it made little valleys like the one that Gero here is tucked into into perfect hiding spaces.

Kind of makes me feel like the whole area is just one big beautiful side quest for real-life warriors and adventurers.

Before I forget, we're gonna have to go find our special item.

And in order to do so, we're gonna need to head into the town.

In Japanese, the word Kemono means beast.

It's believed to come from the word Bakemono, which is a word used to describe monsters.

And this is all a very simplified explanation, but it'll do.

And in the new Wild Hearts game, these Kemono are massive beasts that have undergone a unique evolution by fusing with their environment and nature.

Traveling Japan already feels like an otherworldly adventure most of the time between the views you get, the mountains, the hidden villages.

I already have to work to convince myself that all of this is real half the time.

But can you imagine traveling through a place like this and coming across this giant Kemono-style beast that can modify its environment and you have to hunt or battle that thing?

I came across a bear last year while staying with a hermit here in the mountains of Gifu.

And my favorite part of that memory is that when I told the hermit and my hiking buddy that I had come across said bear.

There's no Kemono, obviously, but the harmony between Japan and nature is that story that I love.

It shouldn't be that challenging to find.

From what I understand, they're readily available in many places.

There's just something about going through these narrow alleyways of Japan that always makes me feel like it's a game.

You know, my end of year goal, my New Year's resolution, if you will, for almost every single year is the same.

Make a little bit more time for myself and play a game.

Because every one of these little adventures feels like a game of its own.

And I think this is where we can get our item.

And this here is what is known as the Yumiguri Tegata.

While it may look just like a souvenir, it's actually more of a key or a pass.

And we're going to need this later today.

I want to attach this somewhere, like here, but it just feels so bulky and unnecessary.

Since the Wild Hearts game focuses on mythological creatures, I actually wanted to share a local myth or legend that lies in the heart of the town of Gero.

So the legend says that about 800 years ago, the onsen water, the hot spring water here in Gero, stopped flowing completely.

Some say there was no reason, others say that it was because of an earthquake.

And as Gero is an onsen town, obviously this was a problem.

But then one day, an injured white heron was said to land right here on the Hida River.

And white heron are far from common in this area.

So as the villagers approached to get a closer look, suddenly, as if healed all in an instant, the heron took off into the sky.

And from the spot where it had landed, hot onsen water came piping out of the ground.

And the onsen, the hot springs, they were back.

More amazingly, after that, the heron flew into the mountains.

And the spot that it chose to land and rest became the Onsenji Temple that we started at today.

So if you actually look inside that temple, there's a wooden plaque that has an image of a white heron, even though they're not local to this area.

Also, there's an open-air onsen or bath over here that people actually come out in bathing suits and sit down by the river and enjoy the hot springs.

A lot of Japanese mythology and folklore tend to tie together animals or creatures with nature in this way.

I think it's a really good way to represent the raw power of nature itself, especially in such a natural disaster-prone country like Japan.

Each area of Japan also kind of has its own mythology and legends and creatures.

And also, that mountaintop up there, I don't even know if I'm pointing at the right one, is where I'm heading to.

I'm going to be trying to hike through the forest up to the peak of that mountain.

We've got some unpredictable mountain weather passing through right now and there's a bit of a hiking course right here.

Weirdly often, the entrance to these hiking trails and whatnot tend to just be in the back of people's properties.

So I'm always somewhat unsure if this is the path that I need to be taking.

But it always starts the hike off with an extra sense of adventure.

I rarely ever get a chance to spend more than one to two days in any given area and then I'm on to the next location or on to the next project or whatever it might be.

So when I have this opportunity like this to come back and re-explore a place that caught my interest and learn more about it and check out the spots that I didn't get to check out, it is such a treat.

It's kind of like that very first trip to Japan.

The first time that you ever come to Japan, it ends up being like an appetizer.

This thing that teases you and you cannot wait to get back and experience more.

And every new place I go in Japan kind of does that for me.

There are very few places that I haven't wanted to go back a second time and explore more.

NAKASENDO Not quite as beautiful, but this whole area reminds me of my Nakasendo walk from last year.

Still by far one of my favorite walks I've ever done.

We have got to go back and do more of that trail.