Lost Japan Videos

19/09/2022

Check out this amazing couple tacking a 200 year old farmhouse. They began by establishing a base in one part of the home and remodeling from there. Such an ambitious project and life adventure!

古民家再生暮らしをはじめてから1年が経ちました、カジヤの最初の1年をまとめた総集編をお届けします。Click here for English version→https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8kY6MjIYNc山梨県のそこそこの田舎に移住して、蔵に住みながら古民家...

27/07/2022

Linked below is my review of Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises. Warning: I totally spoil the story if you haven’t already read this book. This novel introduced me to the devastation of World War One after the armistice of 1918, when the bullets stopped, the bombs ceased, tanks ground to a halt and the new horrors of machine-guns, gas attacks and airplane warfare were put aside while a young generation of men and women who had survived returned to a ruined civilization and lives without prospect, direction or motivation. Before this book I’d never heard of “The Lost Generation” whose ranks and stories had mostly died away before I’d reached adulthood and had an opportunity to know them myself. Thanks to Papa Hemingway though, at least I now understand the intensity of change The Great War did inflict upon continents, culture and an entire generation of the West.

https://youtu.be/y121ytpBP8g

16/03/2018

The withering rural communities of Japan became so familiar to me during my life there, that such seemingly pedestrian videos as this were deliberately withheld from my main YouTube channel for fear of being too uninteresting to share. I had literally become numb to the phenomenon of whole towns and villages dying before my eyes. Houses which one week breathed gently with the lives of the last representatives of a once proud family were the next week dark and silent. Especially startling, was passing through such places at night; where the darkness was as deep, and the silence as settled, as a midnight walk through the most remote forest on the mountain. Going through my catalog of "B-reel" videos this week in pursuit of material for this Lost Japan Videos project, I now see these forgotten videos in a new light. After four years away from the scene of the unfolding tragedy of rural Japan, I can sense better how each and every empty home, building, school, temple shrine, cemetery, road, farm and community, has a special story of loss all its own.

14/03/2018

Every year during summer break in Japan, the children of our little community of Yada would go to the village Shinto shrine to practice dancing and playing drums ahead of the big summer festival. The kids would arrive very early in the morning - usually with a mom or dad in tow - to practice traditional and modern dances which are performed while walking in slow circles around a raised drum platform; a platform which all the men in the community - including me - would erect and take down at the beginning and end of summer. That's Yumiko dancing directly in front of me. Emily is in there somewhere with her friends, though frankly I couldn't pick her out of the crowd. On the night of the big event nearly all of the girls will arrive in lovely, and very colorful summer yukata (lightweight kimono) while the boys wear cool and comfortable jimbe (boy's summer kimono with cutoff legs and sleeves). I suspect we were about a week away from the big festival when I made this particular video, which event was a real highlight to our lives in Japan, and something I still miss each summer since we've left. Emily must have been no older than ten or so at the time.

13/03/2018

The mountains of central Japan are a biome of such life abundance as to stagger the mind. Though the temperate rain forests are silent in winter, they come alive in every sense of the word as soon as spring is underway, usually under the accompaniment of wild cherry blossom blooms which dot the deep evergreen slopes with patches of white, and which are a hint and reminder of the life riot about to unfold. Foremost in the coming renewal are a myriad variety and types of insects, spiders and their kin, which reproduce in such vast numbers, and in such a diversity of forms - usually quite large - as to fill every forest and field with a host of crawling, hopping and flying, six, eight and myriad-legged wonders. I can't recall how many times I've stopped in my Japan mountain hikes to stare for long minutes at a large bush, to then enjoy the eerie sensation of picking out first one set, then another, and eventually dozens of faceted eyes gazing back at me from everywhere on the bush from every kind of insect and spider possible, like a host of creepy apartment tenants all come at once to the window to stare with empty eyes at the lumbering intruder at the side of the trail.

11/03/2018

In this episode of Lost Japan I'd stopped by the side of the road to examine what appeared to be a structure swallowed in the forest greenery. After that, I spotted a faint trail leading up the canyon which led to the ruins of irrigation infrastructure for what may have been a wasabi radish farm. Of course there are blood-sucking leeches in this video. No proper Lost Japan video would fail to include leeches.

06/03/2018

Festivals were as frequent as the seasons in Japan. And like the seasons, every festival had it's own atmosphere, colors, mood and quality of nature and life. From moon festivals, to summer festivals, to lantern festivals harbor festivals, and even festivals of the dead, Japan is a country where no opportunity is neglected to dance, sing and enjoy the fleeting and wondrous moments of life.

05/03/2018

JAPAN TRAIN VIDEOS - JR Higashi-Shizuoka Station - Lost Japan
Have you ever wondered what it's like to explore a train station in Japan? This video, from my new LOST JAPAN series, chronicles a half-hour tour of Higashi (East) Shizuoka station, which is the newest, and second-largest train station in Shizuoka City, Japan. I visited this station early in the morning in order to make this video when I could avoid the crowds, and enjoy the lovely light of dawn. We begin the video on ground-level, just outside the south entrance to the station. The sounds you are hear are very common at all Japanese train stations, which are an auditory delight of bells, whistles, chimes and pleasant announcements (usually in a soft, female voice) over the loudspeaker. After we ride the escalator up to the station, we'll walks about, enjoy a view of Mt. Fuji, and then linger to watch Bullet Trains (Shinkansen) race by below. My favorite part of the tour was observing the young policeman patrolling the bicycle racks while looking for unregistered bikes.

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My name is Kurt Bell and I am delighted that you have taken some time to share a little of The Good Life with me. I'm available on social media at the links below and can be reached via email at [email protected]

Going Alone is an independent approach to living, uncovering what is real, and making peace with the facts of what is true no matter how the truth makes us feel. I upload at least one video a week for this series on my YouTube channel.

The Good Life is a formulated plan of objectives and principals designed to help us live a more virtuous life in accord with sound reasoning. I upload at least one video a month for this series.

Buy and read my book The Good Life here:
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CHANNEL CREDITS

Softypapa avatar art by Hideki Lewis. See more of the artist's work here: http://eue-art.deviantart.com/

"Japanese Falls" image by the artist Lane Brown. See more of Mr. Brown's work at the following URL:
http://lanebrownart.blogspot.com/p/portfolio.html

Channel Theme Music "Song For Kurt" used with permission by Nowherians. Discover more about the artist and their music here: http://nowherians.bandcamp.com/

04/03/2018

Spooky old deserted Japan farmhouse - 古い放棄された日本の家
This was one of the very first videos in the Abandoned Japan series. The location is roughly 30 miles deep into the rugged coastal range on the east coast of the Japanese island of Honshu. This area was my usual haunt during my Japan adventure years, and I was at the time travelling along the only road into a very remote area I sometimes referred to in my videos as the "Deep Mountains." Over the years I'd routinely drove past the old house featured in this video, though I'd never stopped to have a look. On this particular trip, I'd spotted a family of Snow Monkeys in an abandoned tea farm just down road from the farmhouse, and I'd stopped the car to get a closer look. While walking back, a nice older Japanese woman stopped to ask if I needed any help. That happened right in front of the old farmhouse, and after she left I decided on an impulse to check it out. This experience was the start of Abandoned Japan, as the resulting discovery made me realize someone needed to film these old places before nature reclaimed then utterly.

During, and after, the video I was keenly aware that I was trespassing, which fact made me very uncomfortable - as though the house was clearly no longer lived in, I'm pretty sure the owner (probably a very old farmer) was still keeping an eye on it, and perhaps returning periodically for mild upkeep. If you followed the Abandoned Japan channel while it was active, you may have noticed that I never again explored any house or structure in such good condition, as it just didn't seem the right thing to do - and instead I limited my exploration to houses, businesses, farms, temples and shrines which were clearly utterly abandoned, and no longer subject to human interest; and even then, I rarely went inside.

I'm 100% confident that if I returned to this home today I'd find it utterly overgrown with the force and fecundity of Japan's temperate mountain rainforests, which can swallow a home or farm utterly in a matter of one or two years. For, once the attendant old farmer dies, everything in the power and control of his once strong and capable hands returns utterly to the land from whence it was made. The current number of abandoned homes in Japan is estimated at over 20 million (thanks for the stat Kevin O'Shea), and the number is rising each year. And with the average age of Japanese farmers currently hovering just below 70, Japan is facing nothing short of a coming apocalypse of loss to its rural agrarian lifestyle and culture.

This video was first uploaded to YouTube on November 17th, 2012.

Note: Clearly I didn't watch the video until AFTER I wrote the description. It turns out this is my revisit to this old house which I first visited five years earlier (that would have been in 2007). So much for thinking I can remember a video from the thumbnail. I guess I'd better watch these things before I write up the description.

-----

My name is Kurt Bell and I am delighted that you have taken some time to share a little of The Good Life with me. I'm available on social media at the links below and can be reached via email at [email protected]

Going Alone is an independent approach to living, uncovering what is real, and making peace with the facts of what is true no matter how the truth makes us feel. I upload at least one video a week for this series on my YouTube channel.

The Good Life is a formulated plan of objectives and principals designed to help us live a more virtuous life in accord with sound reasoning. I upload at least one video a month for this series.

Buy and read my book The Good Life here:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0779LLWGV

YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXFx-GHOyrQiiGqxE-J9fYA

Facebook
Main Page: https://www.facebook.com/LylesBrother
Journal Page: https://www.facebook.com/Softypapa-337676096304661/

Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/softypapa/

Google+
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LinkedIn
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Flickr
https://www.flickr.com/photos/oldjapanphotos/

Twitter
https://twitter.com/softypapa

CHANNEL CREDITS

Softypapa avatar art by Hideki Lewis. See more of the artist's work here: http://eue-art.deviantart.com/

"Japanese Falls" image by the artist Lane Brown. See more of Mr. Brown's work at the following URL:
http://lanebrownart.blogspot.com/p/portfolio.html

Channel Theme Music "Song For Kurt" used with permission by Nowherians. Discover more about the artist and their music here: http://nowherians.bandcamp.com/

04/03/2018

Japan history house and Meiji Tunnel - Lost Japan Videos
This video comes out of the vault from my years in Japan, and captures a hike I enjoyed with my daughter and her friend Chizuru. The little stretch of road we are walking is part of the old Japan Tokaido Highway. Come share a pleasant walk through a little village between Shizuoka and Fujieda and located just east of the famous Meiji Tunnel.

My name is Kurt Bell and I am delighted that you have taken some time to share a little of the experience of life with me. I'm available on social media at the links below and can be reached via email at [email protected]

Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/Softypapa-337676096304661/

Twitter
https://twitter.com/softypapa

Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/softypapa/

Google+
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LinkedIn
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My blog
http://softypapa.wordpress.com