00:00:02 John Daub: Hello everybody, welcome to Izumo Taisha (Izumo Grand Shrine). This is from the steps looking down on the town of Izumo. Beautiful. This is the shopping street that we just walked up and down in a live stream just before that. You can see we do have some dark skies up there. It's a real magical looking scene and this is a very magical place. So today we're going to take you from here down into the Izumo Taisha.

00:00:37 John Daub: And walk around, but while we do so, we're going to learn a little bit about this amazing place and we're going to exchange the sand that we picked up over here in this direction. More about that in a second. Let me introduce you to Dean Newcomb and Yuki, who are right over there. Hey guys. Hey. Hello again. Let's do this. Dean, you've been here before, right?

00:01:05 Dean Newcomb: I have, yeah, second time. It's been a while. It's been six years since I was last here.

00:01:05 John Daub: Yeah. Really? For you too? No. Yeah, let's go. Alright, let's do it. So, before, how do you do my knee? When we walk in the torii gate, we need to bow once. Everybody bow once. And walk in.

00:01:33 John Daub: See, there's so many, it seems like there's so many rules. And please walk on the side of the street because the middle of the street is the way for God. Right. So, in Shinto shrines, never walk down the center. You'll see Japanese on the left and the right. The only people down the center, people have no idea what they're doing. That's where the kami-sama, the gods walk down there and you don't want to block their way.

00:01:58 John Daub: Now, this road is very interesting here. This goes to the west and Yuki, you were saying before, this is the way to Bentenjima in this direction, right?

00:02:09 Yuki: Yes, in this direction.

00:02:11 John Daub: So from the beach, you can walk straight to the beach if you go in this direction with the sand. It's about a 15-20 minute walk straight this way. We drove it. But there is a direct path and you can see there's even an opening for people to walk in because it's something that a lot of people do. Not a lot of, even Japanese from outside the area, not a lot of people know about what we're about to do with the sand from Bentenjima.

00:02:36 Dean Newcomb: All right. Anything we need to know? I feel like I was that guy that you're talking about, the one that doesn't know what they're doing and walking down the road.

00:02:45 John Daub: I think we both were. At this shrine, they're particularly strict about that rule, aren't they?

00:02:48 Dean Newcomb: Yeah. I feel that in Izumo Taisha, they really make a point of separating the middle and the sides. We'll see later on where the path even splits. They leave a middle section just for the gods, you know? That's quite interesting.

00:03:07 John Daub: So they renovate this shrine every 60 or 70 years, I heard? Koji aru ne (under construction). Every 60 years. And they finished in 2015, right? The last time. Why do they do that? Why do they every 60, 70 years renew the shrine?

00:03:36 Yuki: Because it is made of wood, so we need to refresh it. And also, the god's power is refreshed because of that. Like giving the power, god's power refreshed through this.

00:03:51 John Daub: So all of the buildings, almost all the shrines that I've been to in Japan are made of wood. So they need special attention. Now, the main structure are quite old, but everything has been renovated. Because of all the earthquakes that Japan has, fires, different things that have happened through the history of Japan. A lot of the wood buildings just doesn't last forever. And that's also kind of symbolism, right? Nothing lasts forever. So as you make it out of wood, you definitely need to continue to renew it.

00:04:29 John Daub: We passed this. We have to worship this place. Oh! We almost missed it. So this is Haraedo no Yashiro (purification shrine). It makes us clean before we go to the main building. So let's pray for it.

00:05:00 John Daub: When we pray, two bows. You have to bow twice. One. Two. And after that, four claps. One. Two. Three. Four. And one bow. Okay. I'm representing all of you watching, so you're here with me. Also taking part in the cleansing. And from some of the filthy comments from the trolls, some of you need a lot of cleansing.

00:05:46 John Daub: Later, let's speak about the four claps. Because everywhere else in Japan, every shrine you go to, it's just two. So what's going on with these four claps? That's very unusual.

00:06:01 Dean Newcomb: Yeah, it is unusual. Dean doesn't have a mic on, so he's got a bigger booming voice. I need to project my voice.

00:06:08 John Daub: Let's find out about these four claps later. Now, I came here about four years ago, and I remember this side of the park was so beautiful. They had sakura trees, cherry blossom trees here, all blooming in the beginning of April. The weather here is cooler than in Tokyo, so the blossoms bloom a little bit later. But you can see there's some really beautiful wildlife, including the ducks, which is my son's mortal enemy. The ducks scare him.

00:06:45 John Daub: So you can see WRX Turbo is in the house. Nice to see you. Gary Chan, have you ever heard of the What3Words app? Irvin is here. Needs some cleansing, too. Irvin, you have been cleansed right here. We will give you some extra cleansing. You're with us too. And when you come to Japan, I will give you some of this sand.

00:07:13 Yuki: It is called tōrō (stone lanterns) in Japanese.

00:07:23 John Daub: They're quite large compared to other places in Japan. This is significant for the importance of Izumo Taisha, right, Izumo Grand Shrine. They are much taller than Dean, who himself is quite a tall man.

00:07:57 John Daub: This is a beautiful bridge here. And there's streams that go all around Izumo Taisha. And I think it's representative that everything is alive here. So you can see on the map. Is this the border? This is the border, that kind of border. So yeah, it's kind of border of God's place and our place. Take a big step and you end up in the national park. Yeah, this is also the National Park's border.

00:08:36 John Daub: And that's important to say, we are with Japan's Ministry of the Environment here bringing you this information. This is actually one of the Ministry of the Environment's properties. This is a national park. The Daisen-Oki National Park is split up into lots of different pieces that make up a national park. The name of this particular national park and it encompasses the Oki Islands which we could not go to which we're going to go to next time. And the Daisen that you did a year ago, I love Daisen, Mount Fuji of the west, right?

00:09:17 John Daub: Oh we cannot go back through under this torii so you can't go through here there's actually a blockade in the center but that's bow bow once here about once here about one time on the side. Yeah I've done a wrong before in the past I'm just hoping that kami-sama is forgiving. As you can see there really aren't a lot of tourists. We did pick up a brochure here and a guide and I'll try to give you a little bit of the rundown as we go along here. Yuki's going to point out things of interest as we walk by them so stay tuned.

00:10:16 John Daub: And there are many rabbits here. Yeah so this is these are the rabbits from the Japanese tale mythology. Yeah oh those over there yeah so this isn't Rabbit Island uh that's that in Hiroshima this is actually a there's a story behind it.

00:10:34 Dean Newcomb: Oh sure do you want to go over oh heck yeah I see rabbits I run towards them even the Easter Bunny.

00:10:42 John Daub: Hey do you have the Easter Bunny in England? Oh yeah really isn't he from England that's actually true probably how did he get to the U.S Mayflower I think they use the rabbits for food on that ship like Santa right you can do. Speaking of the Mayflower happy Thanksgiving to those that are watching on Thanksgiving.

00:11:07 Dean Newcomb: Okay ah I'm going aside going aside wait a second is that a real carrot? No way somebody brought a left a carrot here for the rabbit that's so cool here five years ago five years ago but recently I guess yeah it is new yeah it is new.

00:11:35 Dean Newcomb: So the story behind the rabbits by and large very quickly seemed to tie up with evil power they were always tight in relaxabad.

00:11:37 John Daub: Dean, do you wanna... can you say this? What's the story behind the rabbits? You know it well.

00:11:41 Dean Newcomb: I can try. So there was a rabbit on Oki no Shima who tried to come to the mainland, and to get there he hopped on the back of a series of sharks to the mainland. But maybe the last shark was able to bite him on the back and pull off his fur, leaving him in a pretty messed up state. So, a man called Okuninushi helped the rabbit, with some ointment, and brought him back to his genki self, and because of that nice deed that he did, he was able to marry the princess called Yagami-hime. And everybody lived happily ever after, I guess? Happy ending?

00:12:25 Yuki: Yes, it is a happy ending.

00:12:28 John Daub: For a second I thought it was just a happy ending. What happened to the sharks? Maybe sharks, not a happy ending. I think so. I think the sharks, they make out okay. They find other food. So that's the tale, and there's some background behind the rabbits here. So that's very connected with Shimane prefecture, and a lot of the confections that you'll find have rabbits in them. So Shimane and Tottori. That's an important story. Okinoshima is Shimane prefecture. But we can find the rabbit even in Tottori.

00:13:03 Dean Newcomb: Poor sharks. Kawaiso (poor things).

00:13:04 John Daub: I hope I did the story justice, you know? I think you did a pretty good job, Dean. But that's not your first time. You've been here with NHK before?

00:13:12 Dean Newcomb: I've been here with Runaway.

00:13:14 John Daub: Dean's YouTube channel is Runaway Japan where he does a lot of adventure stuff.

00:14:12 John Daub: I love the mythology in Japan, and you're going to find a lot of that here. One of the reasons why this makes this the oldest, and most important of Japan's shrines is it's listed in the Kojiki, which is a story that goes back 1,300 years, making this, I guess this would be the founding of Japan was here, like in this area. Something like this. There's a road that leads to Daisen up in the mountain. That road is wobbly. You can twist your ankle if you're not too careful, but it's definitely a man-made road. Dates back 1,300 years. So man has been in this area for an extremely long amount of time.

00:15:09 John Daub: Now here we have straight ahead, this is the grand shrine. We're about to enter it. Coming here... And the god of Izumo Taisha, this shrine is very important for marriage, right, Yuki-san?

00:15:54 John Daub: So you want to purify, clean your hands and your mouth too, so you can... Yes, so normally these are with ladles. But because of the coronavirus, they changed the system to... Because of COVID, they changed... You don't have to touch anything anymore. So the ladles are gone and you have to use your hand to do it.

00:16:20 John Daub: Thanks, everybody. I know there's a signal. We're quite deep. And as I showed you, we were driving into Izumo towards the Taisha. We go deeper into the mountains. Izumo Taisha here goes deep into the side of the hill where the signal might not be as strong. That could be the spirits. And there's a statue of Okuninushi. Wow! He's the man of the hour that saved the day. Okuninushi, there's a statue here. I love this shrine.

00:16:53 John Daub: Also, where we got this sand, and we're going to be talking about that as we give the sand to the shrine, something that a lot of Japanese don't know about this sand exchange. This is in November where the deities, the gods of Japan, all meet here. November being a very spiritual month, very important for those Shinto rituals because it's right after the harvest, the rice harvest. So for people in Japan, it's something that's just very symbolic, very important, the harvest.

00:17:27 John Daub: And this is pretty incredible. So this is a wave. This looks like a wave of water. So this is when he's getting the power from that bowl. He's gaining the power. So this bowl called Kushimitama Sakimitama. I borrowed this sand. It is a script. I did not steal it. It's kind of a script. I'm borrowing it. I'm giving it back right now. You're supposed to do it. Trust me. I know what I'm doing. Wow. So the power is coming to him. It's powerful.

00:18:04 John Daub: You can see we're getting deeper into nature as we move closer to the Grand Shrine. Yeah, there's a lot of trees. We're getting deeper into nature, moving away from the city. The vibe is different. The air is different. It's not windy in here because it's knocked down from a lot of the vegetation. But as I was going back, November fall is a very important month and season for Shinto, the Shinto religion. And at this time, there's a lot of Shinto rituals going on. A lot of them were canceled last year because of the pandemic. But we're going to learn a little bit more about that as we go inside now, the shrine. There's a map here. So you can see we've walked the length of the green area there. And now we're about to go into the inner part of Izumo Taisha.

00:19:17 John Daub: I'm bowing for you. And we do have permission to be filming, by the way. So you can see I'm wearing an armband. That's power right there. Izumo Grand Shrine is a Shinto shrine. And we call it, it's easy to remember, Shinto Shrine Buddhist Temple.

00:19:55 John Daub: Yuki-san, this is an amazing rope. So this is shimenawa (sacred straw rope).

00:20:02 Yuki: Yeah, shimenawa is the rope made of the kind of plants. Storos.

00:20:13 John Daub: Can we go a little closer? I've never seen one this big before. Do you have any money? You can put money into the box. Okay. I'm going to give some money for all of you. Got some big ones. Hey, no, more the better. It's been a tough year for the shrine, I'm sure. So typically you give 5 yen. But because we got so many people, I'm going to give 50 because that's a lot. So that's another zero and representative 5 is an important number here.

00:21:06 Yuki: So after you throw the money in the box, you can wish your hope. No limit, but yeah, I wish one. One wish. And we can wish for other people or we can wish for ourselves. Ourself. If my wife was sick, for example, I could wish for her. It is okay. But if I just really wanted a new car, I could also have a selfish wish, right? Can you wish for more wishes?

00:22:00 John Daub: And two bows. One, two, and four claps. One. Two. Three. Four. And wish something. And one bow. And I mean, a wish. Can you tell people your wish or is it a secret? Is it a secret? It depends. If I tell people what I wish for, will it come true? Like a birthday wish, you can't tell people, tanjoubi (birthday), you know, when you blow out the candles. You can't say it's a secret. You don't have to keep it a secret. Okay, that's good. Well, no, your wish is a secret. I wished for all of you. So I'm going to tell you. I wished for good health. And I wish that all of you can come to Japan in 2022 and have a really safe trip. That's what I wish. It's 50 yen. So it's 10 times more powerful than a five yen.

00:23:39 John Daub: These claps? Shall I tell you? So, Yuki-san, one moment, please. So, Dean, why we typically at Shinto Shrine, you will clap two times. But at Izumo Grand Shrine, it's four times. Why, Dean?

00:23:54 Dean Newcomb: I've heard that two are for yourself. And two are for your partner or hoped for partner. So at this shrine, it's kind of a shrine for love. So you can give an extra two claps for either your wife or your loved one or for the person that you hope to meet in the future.

00:24:13 John Daub: Kind of nice, right? That makes a lot of sense. And I know that there's a lot of single people who come here to pray, to get married. So if you're... This is better than Match.com or Tinder. You're far more powerful. This is much more powerful here. This is a matchmaking place, I guess. And you pray here for the hope to meet a partner in love.

00:24:44 Dean Newcomb: We were kind of... No. I guess I was kind of half single. When I first came here. I was.

00:24:49 John Daub: I was half single, too. Well, then it worked, didn't it? In 2017, when I came here, I was dating Kanae and we got married. And yeah, and I married my wife after this. Yeah, it did work. It worked.

00:25:05 Yuki: So this is the main building of this shrine. But we cannot go inside of it. Literally sacred. They're Shinto priests who work here in the shrine. Okuninushi. He's worshipped here in this building.

00:25:32 John Daub: Well, I got to give Okuninushi some money because he has great power. Okay, let's give some money. Let me get some cash here. Let me see if I can get something bigger. All right, I'm going to go even bigger now. I'm going to give 100 yen from all of us. That's 20 times more powerful than the typical donation. And the money, I believe, just goes to the shrine.

00:26:49 John Daub: So I just prayed for all of you as well. For everybody. So this building was built in 1744. And old building is here. This is a pillar. This was the pillar of the building before. Oh, this is the excavation from the past. So this is really interesting. Wow. So this building is 24 meters high. Then old one is 48 meters high. So this is a really interesting story.

00:27:24 Yuki: So an archaeological excavation found that... Again, this building here now is 24 meters high. But the original one, going back hundreds and hundreds of years, was 48 meters high.

00:27:39 John Daub: Yeah. 48 meters high. We're talking about ancient times, like hundreds of years ago. This is the mock-up of what Izumo Grand Shrine looked like many years ago. 48 meters high. And it's pretty amazing to me that they had that kind of technology to build something so grand hundreds of years ago. See those steps? That's pretty massive. That's a guy like halfway up. That's incredible. The pillars was found at here. And the pillars that you see here? That's where these markings represent. So, thank you for having the photo, Dean. It's really cool to be able to show that. That must have been a big tree, huh? That is a very big tree. To be able to construct something like this back in the day... How many men it took? There are so many people. To make something like this.

00:28:43 John Daub: So, this way. It's definitely one of the most interesting shrines that you can visit in Japan, don't you think?

00:28:48 Dean Newcomb: Absolutely one of the most interesting shrines. It's beautiful. And it's also full of people. It's a world of stories, you know?

00:29:04 John Daub: They really like Nihonshu (Japanese sake) here, Yuki-san.

00:29:08 Yuki: Yeah. Sponsor. So, the sponsor of shrines are sake makers. Offered it. These are all Shimane sake makers. The gods. Nanbu sake is used for ceremony and the shrine. Ceremonial purposes.

00:29:44 Yuki: This is a paper fortune. So people draw paper fortune. If that's not good, people need to tie it up to this tree or specific place. You can take it home. And if you get a bad one, you tie it to the tree and get rid of it. So these people don't want their wishes to come true. It was a bad thing that they received.

00:30:30 John Daub: It's like a fortune cookie kind of, right? But it's also like a roulette, right? You don't know what you're going to get. There's some good ones and some bad ones.

00:30:38 Yuki: And this building is Jukusha.

00:30:44 John Daub: Jukusha (deity lodging). So Jukusha is where this November, this month, a lot of all the deities come here and stays here. From the other Shinto shrines? All of them are? So all of them, as many as possible, come here and they stay here during the week. So this is the shrine of all shrines here. I love the roof of this building, too. It's really amazingly built.

00:31:31 Yuki: It's a ceremony called Kamiarai (gods' washing ceremony). It was held last week. It is already done. Just finished.

00:31:45 John Daub: So last week, these doors were opened because this is a hotel of many of the deities. But you don't see it open very often? No, yeah, during the week, in a year. The whole week? Wow, the whole week. That reminds me of the scene. Of course, it's a Ghibli animation, but of all of the gods coming for Spirited Away, sent to Chihiro, to the bathhouse, that procession of gods. You remember that scene? Oh, yeah. They all come to the Bentenjima, which is that island in the last live stream that we started at, and they make a procession down that street into Izumo Taisha during the festival. And this is a picture of them all praying during that week. So it's a very holy, very spiritual week that just finished up. Miyazaki Hayao. So he must have been inspired by something, right? Probably. Told these stories and was inspired by that and then came up with something like Spirited Away, you know, right? Now that's an anime. That's not real life. That's just inspiration.

00:33:36 John Daub: Some got deities I'm not sure clean you off here this is quite big we've been doing this for 30 or sanji on pundits it's the boy this show hi I mean when you're live streaming the time just goes by so fast you don't realize. I've never been back here I didn't know there was more so this is the grand shrine from the back here it's pretty massive. This is still the tallest shrine building in Japan. I want a tourist building of this Japan. Wow check that but I believe it's either the tallest shrine building or the tallest wooden shrine building or it has it has some tallest yeah because Todaiji is a temple yes yeah in Nara so so completely different Shinto shrine.

00:34:41 John Daub: That's a really nice look. I love the clouds in the distance do you see that it's a very magical place here deep in the woods you can yeah I can smell the trees well you can when no one's around you can do it just do it secretly. Tokyo Paul 360 the clouds are very dynamic looking that's a zoom oh kumo (clouds) means clouds right yeah it's kumo out of clouds out so the clouds that we have today very like symbolic so this is so Susanoo yeah she know so the Susanoo is worshipped here so Susanoo is ancestor six generations before Okuninushi so let's go.

00:37:03 Yuki: And exchange sand for here sand. So you can take it, your home, and put it four corners out of your house. You can avoid you from any bad luck. Bad luck and spirits and demons.

00:37:26 John Daub: Yeah, I don't like those. Okay, I need to do this. So is this sand here? See, I told you to take. I'm just borrowing the sand. Oh, okay. So we put, here's the sand I took from the beach earlier. And I'm exchanging it because, let's face it, we need some good sand. So where do I put this sand? It seems like you just take it from the same place. So mix it? Yeah. Put it here. Where's the new sand? Oh, so mix it? Yeah, mix it. Gonna mix it in with the... Mix it. Like this? Okay, Dean.

00:38:20 Dean Newcomb: Yeah. Show me your bag, buddy.

00:38:27 John Daub: Thank you. All right. Can you help me out here? Yeah, sure. This is the sound of one hand clapping. Which sand are you gonna go for? I guess I want pure stuff. I don't know. I want to mix it in a little bit. Put the mic in. Like this. So there you go. We have some new sand and we're gonna spread that in the corners of our house. Kanae's gonna love that. What's your wife gonna say? Outside. Okay. It's a bit difficult when you live in Tokyo, isn't it? Yeah, I thought she meant like in my living room. So, we take the sand and we put it in the four corners of our house or around the house. And by doing that, it keeps the bad spirits away. And trust me, this is a good thing. So, Kanae, this is coming home. We're gonna put some sand in the corners of our house.

00:39:55 John Daub: Look at that. Wow. That is such a massive shrine. I think you really feel the power when you look at it from back here. You can't see it when we pray in the front. But now you can see the back of it. It's just massive, isn't it? So you can reach most near from the building, main building here. Do we bow here too? No, hajime. Okay. Go. Oh, look. Those rabbits have pinecones. It's pretty cute. So, you saw the rabbits are in twos. Again, this is a shrine for love and for couples. It's very symbolic right there. We should have came with our wives. Jeez. Should have brought... Again, we were supposed to go to Oki Islands. But because of the weather, the rough seas, the flight and the boats were canceled. They were indeed. So, next time. We will have our revenge. We will have the Oki Islands. Part of the Daisen-Oki National Park.

00:41:33 John Daub: We have one final stop before we end the Izumo Grand Shrine tour. And this side is... The thatching. Look how thick it is. It is really beautiful. So, they don't use any nails. Is that true? Yuki-san, do they use nails for construction? Nails? I am not sure. Is it all wood? We think it is all wood.

00:42:19 Yuki: Ohkuni-nushi is sitting there. And sitting facing West. The direction of Inasa-no-hama (Inasa Beach). So we can worship him here in front of him. Facing him. Bentenjima. The island where we got the sand. He's looking at the coast and we're looking at him.

00:42:45 John Daub: This is all my change now. Are you out? Please, please, sir. That might be. There you go. Get something here. Okay, Irvin, I got something for you too, buddy. There you go, angel forever. I got a little bit of something for everybody here. Long throw. Wow, check it out. This tree really has a lot of bad wishes that need to be dispelled. It's kind of pretty. I just feel really peaceful walking through here.

00:44:12 Dean Newcomb: Dean, how do you feel, right? Yeah, I think the trees are creating a lot of the atmosphere, don't you? The fact that there's so much nature remaining. I mean, the mountain. It's right behind us, right? That helps create all this atmosphere and make all the more peaceful, yeah?

00:44:32 John Daub: I think so too. And the smell is very... It's pretty quiet as well. You can't hear the sound of traffic or anything like that. I feel really lucky that we live in Japan because we have places like this where we can kind of, I don't know, immerse ourselves into nature. And it sort of refreshes. It deletes everything from before. And going into 2022. After this year, so many good things did happen. But this is really, I think I needed this a lot.

00:45:05 Yuki: So these are ema (wish plaques). Where people can write their wishes on here. I think they're about 500 yen. You can buy one of these and you can write your wishes here. This is ema. Their wishes. People probably write about love. Someone they want to meet. You shouldn't read it. You avoid it.

00:45:30 John Daub: Back away, Dean. But it's sort of like, you know, maybe people making matches, like looking for love or something. You might, you can write your phone number here maybe. And someone can, I don't know. I don't think it works like that. I don't think, I don't know how it works. But I like the idea that two people might write them and then just lay them on top of each other. And then later they could meet each other, couldn't they? That's destiny. I like that story. Two people that put their emas there looking for love. Somewhere down the line they meet. Wow. And we would never know. But the gods know. They do know. It's, you know, you really do have to believe in something like that, I think. It just makes life so much more meaningful. Happy.

00:46:52 John Daub: That's kind of nice. Oh, my word. What is that? Now, that's big. Seriously? You showed us rope before. This is super rope. Yeah. This is super huge rope. So, this is Kaguraden (hall for sacred dance).

00:47:11 Yuki: So, this is a place where priests pray those who visit here. And various ceremonies are held here. Like an event hall. And huge shimenawa.

00:47:48 John Daub: You're going to see the most massive looking rope as a tour group comes through here. Hold on. Let them go in there. That's kind of funny. He's kicking like models. Stand back. He's getting them in the best positions. He would know, right? Best position. He's calling them over. This rope... Yuki-san, you said it was... Before you told me, this was like 5,000 kilograms? Yes. 5,000 kilograms in weight. And 13 meters long. And 5,000 kilograms, which is like a bazillion pounds. It's like 1,500 pounds. It's like two SUVs, isn't it? 5 tons. And you can see this wood pole that's holding on to it. Is it old? You've been making it for 70 years? That's what you mean? It's been renewed. Renewed? Every year? Quite often.

00:49:14 John Daub: There's a shrine in Miho no Matsubara called Miho Jinja (Miho Shrine), that also has a very prominent shimenawa. Miho Shrine also has a very prominent shimenawa. But this one, I've never seen anything like this in size. Is this the biggest in Japan? Oh my gosh. Okay, I'm going to go take a quick look-see. Let's investigate. We don't want to get in their pictures, but that is so amazing. Thanks. I'm so happy to be able to share this with all of you. Again, I have been here... This is my fourth time, but I've never been here and gotten this amount of information. So I'm going to walk right underneath this and show it to you. Okay, dozo dozo. I want them to get the best pictures possible. You can film. What's the water coming out of here? Is this natural, like wakimizu (ever-flowing water)? Not sure, yeah. It's hard to say. So I wanted to show you a little bit of it here. We're going to go underneath it. Check it out. We are now directly underneath this. This is amazing. They cut it so perfectly, too. It's just cut so perfectly flat. Now, Japan has some really special knives, but this is like a katana, right? How do they cut it? By katana? Wow. I want to get... I would like to get married here. It must be expensive to get married here. Yeah, I guess so. Yeah, I can't afford it. But has a lot of meaning. Sometimes there's something more important than money. Love. Give it all away for love. Irvin says, Big scissors. It's possible. Dean, could you cut with big scissors? I guess if you were a god, you would have the strength and power to cut that. Right? It's pretty amazing. So impressive, huh? I'm pretty sure they use Ultraman's laser beams to cut through it. Lasers would... I think, though, it's a traditional place. Lasers might not be involved. But in the future, perhaps. I'm not sure. But all kidding aside, this is a very holy place. A very spiritual place for Shinto. For Japanese. And if you are looking for love, if you're single or, you know, love escapes you, this is the place that you come. You cleanse yourself to make your wishes for it to come true. And if you really, really believe in it, I think destiny might take you on a new path. I think destiny will introduce something to you. And I just... Personally, I believe in something bigger than myself. And when I come to places like this, that, I don't know, belief is renewed and strengthened even more.

00:52:49 Dean Newcomb: How do you feel after going through here? Yeah, it's nice. You get to have a... I mean, we're together, right? But ordinarily, you might be only with a loved one or even on your own. And you get to have a bit of quiet time, right? So whatever you believe in, you get to have a bit of self-time, right? And that can be purifying as well, I think.

00:53:08 John Daub: Yuki-san, arigato gozaimasu (thank you very much). Thank you very much. Did we forget something? We told everyone everything, right? This is part of Japan's Ministry of the Environment. And I'm really thankful that we got a chance to take a tour around with you today.

00:53:32 Yuki: Yeah, thank you very much.

00:53:33 John Daub: Tomorrow, Dean and I are going to be going to Hino Misaki. Ah, Hino Misaki. Well, Miho no Matsubara is on the other side. Yeah, you had me confused there. Yeah, I know a little bit about the geography of the Sanin area. There's Lake Shinji, which is this massive lake right on the base of Matsue. And we're on the other side of that lake in Izumo. And if you keep going up towards the sea, there's kind of like a little peninsula. That's right, yeah. That is Hino Misaki. We'll find a lighthouse. And beautiful Japan Sea views. And some good food. Good seafood, yeah. Friendly people? Pretty girls. All right. Thanks, everybody. We're on our way back to... Back home. Back to the hotel. So have a good day. Thanks for joining us on this really wonderful livestream. Happy Thanksgiving to everybody in the U.S. And if you have a comment, leave it down below. I really love it. I'd love to hear from you. And Dean is Runaway Japan. See you, everybody. Check out that big rope. It's just amazing. What do you call this? I forgot. Ah, Kaguraden. Yeah. Thank you.