00:00:03 John Daub: Hey everyone, welcome to Hiei Jinja here in central Tokyo. Right behind me is where we're gonna be starting an adventure taking you to one of the hidden red torii tunnel shrines here in Tokyo. You don't have to go to Kyoto. You can stay right here in Tokyo and find something similar. And I like this one because not a lot of people know about it, which makes it hidden. So it's actually just right there. From here, this is the view that you get. And I'm gonna be taking you up this stairway in about one minute.

00:00:46 John Daub: Yeah, I came here by bicycle from Ginza. It's about a 10-minute bicycle ride. There's a huge police presence in this area because it's right near the Parliament building and I guess it makes you either safe or nervous. It depends how you look at it. But this shrine is very very center in the middle of Tokyo and has a pretty long history. There's also a wedding going on inside there. So that's gonna be neat to see if we get a chance like a glimpse of the bride coming out with her beautiful white dress. On the weekends, a lot of the shrines will have weddings going on here and despite the things going on in all over the world and here in Tokyo, we have some really nice events going on as well. So let's go up the steps here and take a look.

00:01:33 John Daub: This is the back entrance to Hiei Shrine. So you have to be living around here to know if you come in through the front entrance, you're probably not gonna find the stairway right away. It's in the back. So join me for about a 30-45 minute livestream, which probably means an hour.

00:02:01 John Daub: That's interesting. So you guys if you're interested, QR code this thing here. Alright, this couple just sneaked up ahead of us. Let's take a look at it. This is really cool to see. There they go up the stairs and you're gonna come up there with me. Pretty cool, huh? That is a sneak peek. It really does look like a tunnel, doesn't it? And gives you kind of the feeling that you're going into another world.

00:02:41 John Daub: When you go up these steps, you're probably out of breath, which is okay. I think you feel the presence of something higher, something bigger than life and that's the purpose of these torii gates (shrine gates). It's a portal from the mundane, the normal world, to the spiritual world and, right now, now we are in the spiritual world. We are through one of the gates here.

00:03:10 John Daub: I think the nearest station is Kokkai Gijido-mae. It's the parliament building in front of the parliament. That's the closest station. But it's about a 15 minute walk from Hibiya Park. 20 minutes, 15, 20 minutes from Ginza. It's pretty close. Now I believe the history of the shrine goes all the way back to the 15th century. All right, we're gonna go up and down this a couple of times. Tameike-sando is another close station. It's very center. Hiei Shrine is a link in the description if you're interested in coming here. All right, here we go. This is gonna be fun. I love going through here. I did something similar at the Rocket Shrine and it felt like I was going through a warp time zone, warp speed through space and time. Oh, look at it, we got it all to ourselves. All right, let's go do this. This is one of the most Instagrammable places in the city.

00:04:54 John Daub: But before I go down, I wanna show you something. On the sides of these torii gates here, you'll see writing. This says the year Heisei 26. Heisei 26 was five years before last year. So it was like 2014 or something, April. And it'll tell you who sponsored it. So typically, these are sponsored by people. It looks like they're painted over. So another company can sponsor it another year, maybe. I'm not sure how it works, but a lot of them say Heisei. Here's the view from the top. And the same with Inari, Fushimi Inari Jinja down in Kyoto. Each one of those 10,000 gates is sponsored by somebody, some company or an individual. And the size of the gate is the amount that they paid. All right, let's go down. I'm gonna get my exercise going on here because I've been cooped up all day. It does really feel like you're going into another world when you get to the end of this thing.

00:06:13 John Daub: Skateboarding probably is not a good idea. Hey Flo, Florence is here. Thank you so much for the masks. Since I came by bicycle, I'm not taking public transportation. I can kind of save it a little bit today. But I see you were here in 2018. It's very cool. It makes you feel going through these gates to get to the shrine. You really do feel like you're in another world, but it's an adventure. And this is something that I'm really excited about. It's something that's so simple that you can do in the city of Tokyo. Just walking up steps surrounded by vermilion is the name of the color. We call it shu-iro (vermilion) in Japanese. Shu-iro, which is the color of the sun. And this is what I was told by one of the priests in Fushimi Inari. And Inari being kind of like the god of harvest. The sun is very important to harvesting. And if you don't have food, you don't have life. So they worship this color. And it's a bright color. It really stands out in the forest.

00:07:17 John Daub: All right. So give me a thumbs up. Let's see if we can get the 250 likes. And I'm gonna shotgun this thing. I'm gonna go up it, probably knock somebody down. What do you guys think? It's up to you. Hey, Brandon's here. Do the shrines ever max out on gates or donors? This one apparently has a limit, the end of the stairway. But Fushimi Inari in Kyoto still has space for more. All right, let's do this. Ready? Three, two, one. Whoa. It's pretty good. Feels good. Feel the burn. Nice. Tempo run four. Take note of this. This should be in every... Look at these lightweights. They were right behind me. Now they're at the bottom of the steps. Oh, baby, that was good. Hey, we get 250 likes. It's awesome. See what the community can do when we all come together.

00:08:40 John Daub: Here's another torii gate, the big one. Ah. Let's go in here and see if we can see, find some people at a wedding or something. Once again, I'm at Hiei Jinja, H-I-E Shrine. I do have a brief history of it right here. I'll put a link in the description so you can find out more of the history about this place. Whew, out of breath still.

00:09:21 John Daub: Hiei Shrine was designated as a first-class government shrine before the Second World War. It was a highly respected place of worship for the people of Tokyo. The deity enshrined is Oyamakuhi no Kami. The god of Mount Hiei in Shiga Prefecture. Interesting. This deity is more commonly known as Hiei no Kami. Hiei Shrine derives its name from this deity.

00:10:46 John Daub: So this place is pretty darn important. In 1482, Ota Dokan, he was the guy who built Edo Castle. Constructed Edo Castle on the site of the present day Imperial Palace. He also erected a Sano Hiei Shrine in the compound of the guardian deity of the castle. The Shrine of the Kamakura period. Shogun Ieyasu Tokugawa began ruling Japan from Edo Castle. And he was also a patron of this shrine and worshiped the deity as the protector of the city. The old name of Tokyo is Edo. So the last Shogun came here to worship for the protection of the city of Tokyo. How cool is that?

00:11:30 John Daub: All right, it looks like they're putting away for the wedding. This was not for me, this red carpet. Oh, it's a shame. I wanted to see the wedding. We were shotgunning the steps. We missed the bride coming out. Maybe she'll make an appearance. So they're putting away the red carpets. Kanai and I thought about getting married at Meiji Shrine. The famous one. We actually went there and met with them to discuss the cost. And it was about $15,000 for a last minute wedding there. Last minute, I mean like three or four months in advance. People reserve two years in advance. But the reason a lot of people don't get married at Meiji Shrine, you want to know why? Because so many famous people have gotten married at Meiji Shrine and there's been a very high rate of divorce. So a lot of people don't want to get married in a popular place that has a high rate of divorce because it sets up a bad standard. The possibility that this shrine is not good for marriage. So we didn't, that wasn't why we picked Meiji Shrine. We just found a better place. It was more convenient for our parents and the people that we were bringing in. They gave us a pretty good deal because there was a cancellation. And we got a chance to sneak in there with just a couple of months in advance. Typically weddings are planned a year or more in advance.

00:13:10 John Daub: Wow, look at these kids, they're rocketing it. Whoa. Here's the front entrance that I came in. There's a bicycle parking lot on the left side and the parliament building where the government argues and votes is just on the other side of this building. It's pretty close. All right, let's go back in one more time. I'm going to take you around the grounds. It's kind of a cooler day. It's cooled off a lot in the city of Tokyo. We've had beautiful weather for the last couple of weeks and it cooled down. Sapporo had some big snowfall.

00:14:14 John Daub: So if you can't make it because of the world event going on right now, I'll take you with me in this. So definitely subscribe because I'll be doing this more and more. Check this out here. It's a monkey, isn't it? How cool is that? So over here on the left side is where you get the omikuji (fortune slips). And also some of the ema (votive tablets) to write your fortune on. And you can, if you get a bad fortune, you can tie it here. If you get a good fortune, you can tie it here. Jack, just tie it here. And they actually have them in English too. And this is where you put your prayer on these tablets here. And everybody has a wish. Probably a lot of it related to the things going on in today's world. Searching for peace and for good luck. This is, a lot of people will bring their newborn babies to this shrine as well for prayer. So they're healthy.

00:15:40 John Daub: Wow, the artwork on it is beautiful. Look at the world coming together in that one. That's really nice. Nothing in English. I was hoping that we get an international one. Here's one. This is the wish to become a recruiter in Tokyo in 2020. Earn lots and lots and lots of money. Health for myself, family and friends. It's kind of sad. I'm selfish. But I guess that's his wish. How about health, health for everyone. I kind of wish for that. Health for all of you guys watching. Some best of luck for you in your recruiting. Many happiness and good health always to be present among the child family. That's a very nice wish. Here's one. I wish for love, success, prosperity, freedom and good health for all those I love. That's a really nice one. I wish for my mom, family and friends. Love and good fortune. And I wish for my career. So there's a lot of wishes. Whenever I go and I pray, I always pray for myself and my family, but I pray for everybody else too. Because I figure if the guy up there is listening, I want him to know that I'm the kind of person that thinks about everybody. And I think that everybody around you affects you as well. So I think we're learning that now more than ever. So the people around you are healthy. You're going to be healthy too. So it's in your benefit to pray for everybody, not just yourself.

00:17:36 John Daub: A lot of these shrines will have omamori (protective charms). Omamori are like amulets or things that will protect you. They have no photograph sign over there. So I don't want to go over there and disturb the people buying it. But there's a menu of the omamori that you can buy. And you buy it for somebody that you love to protect them. You can buy it for other travelers. But it's on their website, I believe. So you can buy one there. Or you can see the menu. So then when you come, you'll have a chance to know what you're buying before it happens.

00:18:15 John Daub: This is the line to pray. And it's telling everybody to stand together and to move closer together. In the spring, it's really pretty. You can see they have a hanging tree. Wow, that tree is massive. So there's three of them. But this one tree, the branches are all over the top of it. And I can't wait to come back here when it blooms. It's going to be beautiful. But you can see all around. It's surrounded by government buildings. So this shrine is very important for the protection of the city of Tokyo. And I believe politicians will come here to pray for just that purpose. So if you do and you go and pray, you're going to pray for the city of Tokyo for its health. Pray for the people of Tokyo so that they stay healthy.

00:19:18 John Daub: What do you guys think of this shrine? I'm going to take you over now to the people watching. This is called Hiei Shrine. It's in the center of Tokyo. This is where Tokugawa Ieyasu, the first shogun. He was the guy, you know, he was the shogun that unified Japan. He would come here to pray for Edo and the health of the city. And that makes it a pretty significant one. I put a link in the description of this video so you can take a look and see exactly where it is. It's pretty center. They're never going to be moving this shrine. It's going to be here forever. In Japan, shrines are very holy places. And despite being in really prime real estate, sometimes you have to think more than just about the money and the development of the city. You got to think of the spirit of it. Every city has a core and the core of the city might be right here in the shrine or part of it.

00:20:22 John Daub: This is the stairwell that I showed for those of you joining us. We're in Hiei Shrine. And gets demolished tomorrow. Come on. I'm reading these live chats here. Your friendly neighborhood PCG, you're one of the best Japan YouTubers. Have you been to the westernmost, easternmost, northernmost and southernmost spots in Japan? I've been to the northernmost in Wakkanai. I wanted to go to the easternmost, but the snow and the weather kept me from driving the rent-a-car out there. They're both in Hokkaido. And I'm going to be going to the southernmost. And we're going to go to the westernmost. The westernmost if situation allows this year I'm going down to Kyushu as well in Okinawa for sure. So that's guaranteed so you guys want to stick around I'm not leaving Japan. I'm gonna be here for decades.

00:21:11 John Daub: Oh there's some people taking pictures down there I told you it's like an Instagrammable moment is that from the wedding did they sneak out through the back entrance maybe thanks guys for the support I appreciate that that's not 1020 I never said it was it's about I don't know that seems like a hundred 150 steps or so but it's pretty amazing to be in the middle of it and we're going to go down there in about a minute or two yeah but the history of this goes back to the 17th century and it's pretty significant having Tokugawa Ieyasu come here and pray for the health of the city and when you come here and you know that he was here doing the same thing it feels pretty good and after this last stream i'll probably stick around and give a nice prayer because i think we need it here.

00:22:19 John Daub: Are you the YouTuber that goes live on Only in Japan? Yeah yeah i'm live now. You're on live now yeah i was watching your live and then i was thinking like on march like i was watching like february and i was like thinking should i go and then then i watched your vlog oh so they helped yeah so i helped it it's i just convinced me i was like you know what i should just go yeah let's do it yeah let me go yeah yeah just do it yeah then And then I watched the march first and I was like, if you can't cancel then just go. But you know what, I'm having so much fun. Right, it's okay right? Yeah, we're from Canada. From Canada, okay. Yeah. Good. So glad to see you. Yeah, how do you know about this place? Huh? How did you know about this place? I just watch a bunch of vlogs, different YouTubers. Oh, so it's not secret? Yeah, well, um. It's not secret. I don't know. It is like a secret, like I know it's a low key place for like Chinese photos. So I don't know, I just cross my mind. You didn't have a lot of subscribers for that person, I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. Well, there'll be more people here tomorrow. Sorry, I ruined it. Yeah, well, thanks for you. Yeah, here, I'll give you a card. So if you find me in a live stream, you get a card. Oh. Here you go. All right, thank you. You're welcome. Yeah, you're welcome. Yeah, be safe. Have fun. Oh, cool.

00:23:42 John Daub: All right, so we got some traffic here. I'm gonna take you down. I guess it's not that secret anymore. People know about it. I thought I was the only one. So when I remember like 20 minutes ago, I was running up and down it and now it's got a little congested. So that sort of happens sometimes. There's peak times and then there's non peak times. But we're at a peak time right now. All right, let's give it some time and then we're gonna walk down there and you too. For the 1.1 thousand people. For the people who are watching this right now will be joining me on a tunnel run. Serious. As soon as the people, you know, leave a little bit sort of.

00:24:50 John Daub: That's interesting. There are rules. First rule. Do not talk about the shrine. First rule, Fight Club as well. No sitting. Second, third rule, no eating and drinking. Fourth rule, no smoking. And fifth rule, no pets. What? So I can't bring any pets here. This is one of the most Instagrammable places in the city of Tokyo, too. I guess somebody has introduced it already. But if you can't make it to Kyoto and you just have a day or two and you want to feel a little bit of the spirit to come here to Hiei Shrine.

00:26:12 John Daub: I didn't think that there'd be so many people here. You know, I'm not sure. Even in the Google Maps, it said that traffic was low right now. Hey, Google Maps alert. Traffic is high or higher, higher. Jay Paul feels trapped. Jay, there's the sign that tells you this. It's this way. The red, the red incline. So people stop and they take photos. It's pretty cool in the middle of here. We do have a well, we're waiting. So the traffic here. I do have an Instagram. I do think it's analog here. It's a live stream. So we have an Instagram and I'm giving updates. It's getting a little worn here. I'm giving updates on the situation here in Tokyo via Instagram stories once a day. So if I'm not doing it on YouTube, you can make sure I'm okay and know what's going on by going to Instagram. And on Monday, I'm sending these out. These are the postcards for the postcard club. This one is of Hokanji Temple. Which is one of the most iconic views in Kyoto. I love this spot and it's our postcard for this month and it's going out on the 11th. So if you order before then, I think there's seven left. You'll be getting an Olympic torch stamp, which is a limited edition stamp. I like the stamps on postcards. That's on Patreon.

00:27:48 John Daub: All right. I think we have, we can go down now. Let's go. People are in there taking photos. I don't want to be in their photo, but how can I avoid it? Yeah, it's hard. Hard to avoid it. All right. Let's give the people some privacy. I don't want to, I don't be that guy at the top of the steps with the camera looking down on you. Say, look, you are live on YouTube right now. I don't want to do that. Let people have their privacy. Can I wanted to come today, but she's, she's, uh, she's kind of busy. Her dad's coming over for dinner. You guys ready? Let's go do this. So for the 1.1 thousand people joining us, welcome to another world. Did you get the shot? Not really. You got the shot? Yeah. Yeah. It comes in waves. The people they'll be gone in about five minutes. I bet I had it all to myself 20 minutes ago. And it does feel like you're in another world when you walk down these steps.

00:29:29 John Daub: So my answer is why leave it? Why not just turn around and go back up? That's so cool. Awesome. The red flags. Each one of these is sponsored by somebody. That's pretty nice. That's a nice way of sponsoring. So the one in Kyoto has 10,000 of them. 10,000 gates sponsored. That's a lot of money. It's hard to clean every day too.

00:30:36 John Daub: So what do you guys think? Leave a comment in the description, the comments down below. Let me know if this is on your radar. If you may get to Tokyo. If the Hiei Jinja Shrine steps are worthy. I think they are. In fact, if you're just walking through, going to the other side, that's pretty cool. All right, let's cut through the shrine again. I'm going to take you to my bicycle. If you have any questions, you can ask right now. That's the great thing with the live streams. I'm here to answer your questions. Oh, by the way, Monday, Kanai and I are going to be going to rent a car, is the plan, and going to Shizuoka, maybe. All right, let's go into the shrine here.

00:31:37 John Daub: Welcome to the shrine area. Yvonne writes it's on her radar. Awesome. A lot of people that are here were on the fence, I think, whether or not they wanted to make it to Japan. But there are a lot of tourists here. Never walk down the center, by the way. So on these walkways leading up, don't walk down the center. Stay to the left or the right. Yeah, more steps. It's a good workout. The bike ride here was a good workout. But city of Tokyo, outside of some of these attractions, and the shrines and temples are still open. There's really not too much to do. A lot of the restaurants, especially the high-end restaurants have had cancellations and they are available, meaning those that have not been able to get a reservation ever, or you have to wait six months in advance, they can just call and get a reservation and go in the next day. I was meeting with a friend of mine who goes to a lot of these high-end restaurants and he told me that he could book a reservation for him. Called a sushi shop that he often goes to just out of a whim and they said they were open for tomorrow night he jumped on that so the hard to get into restaurants in Tokyo give them a call and that might even be worth just jumping on a plane for that it doesn't happen too often if you to call at a restaurant where you get a six month wait and you had it you can go in the next day so there's some for I said this in a live stream of last week I said there there are some risks and there's some rewards to coming in a time like this but i I was talking about the I was giving updates just because I want you to have a clear view and you by observing you get an idea if you also want to make the trip.

00:34:19 John Daub: Tomorrow I'll be doing another live stream it's supposed to rain so we'll see what the weather's like I'm not sure if it's raining can I and I might do a cooking show we we got a bunch of freeze-dried food you know the stuff that the astronaut not the astronauts food but like really high quality freeze-dried food premium freeze-dried food not like ramen drape freeze-dried food but real like oh yeah kudon and like udon and and edamame soup and stuff this freeze-dried so I think we're gonna probably do that live stream tomorrow and take a look at some of Japan's really amazing freeze-dried food culture yeah they got freeze-dried food I said freeze-dried like ten times and I believe that's up there is the Parliament building and it's loaded I've never seen so many police in one spot in Japan so it's protected place in the country maybe and the Imperial Palace is just around the corner hey Antonio nice to see here please use this to buy some hand sanitizer and some alcohol to prevent yourself from getting okay thanks for that I'll see you tomorrow.

00:35:38 John Daub: Okay thank you for watching this video if you enjoyed it give it a thumbs up and if you haven't already subscribe to my channel and hit the notification bell and I'll see you next time bye bye the comment section of this video give it a thumbs up and subscribe because guess what there's a lot of updates coming uh this is a pretty interesting time to be in the city of tokyo for somebody who lives here i don't know if it's a good time to travel but i'll be taking you with me every few days to give you an update on the situation here i think it is uh something that's concerning and we should all know as much as possible especially if you're planning to come here whether anytime this year so this will be the channel for you to get that information uh well by the way we got a discord server you can um go into there and 24 7 people are asking questions about travel in japan there we have a chat group for just about everything um nasha broad and and ufo bob and solaires and and katayama and uh oh gosh i know i'm missing there's just a bunch of we got so many wonderful moderators now um the it's really growing the discord server there and it's it's free so maybe download that and get in the in there you can share photos and stories from travel around japan at this time so it makes answers all of your questions from travelers that are here right now we'll be sharing their stories with you so that's kind of a cool thing all right guys see you in the next live stream i think they're going to the wedding they're all dressed up it's nice that there's there's really positive stuff going on in the city hey don't block the shot hi you're blocking the shot aloha see everybody.