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The Unnamed Adventure II | The Full Adventure
🕑 Added 2020-10-16 08:15:18 +0000 UTCComing This Sunday at Midnight (Japan Time)
Last year, Victor and I embarked on what we dubbed, The Unnamed Adventure.
A Four Day exploration that lead us through tunnels, abandoned shrines, creepy statues, and so much more... (The entire YouTube series is here: http://bit.ly/UnnamedAdventure)
And for 2020 we felt like we needed to up the ante a bit. And so... we decided to turn 4 days into 8, and try to cover more than twice the distance that we did last year.
This year... it all went wrong. Only about 5 of the videos we planned made it to YouTube (with one more coming near Halloween). The rest... lost to the ages... Some spots were completely shut down and inaccessible, others lost to terrible weather or... bears.
And so this year, I have decided to take all 8 days of adventure,
and compile them into one single Patreon-only video (Coming Out This Sunday).
Put together almost entirely of footage from failed video attempts, and cut-scenes, it tells the story of a full 1 week adventure executed under the strictest of conditions.
The Rules: No Hotels, No Indoor Spaces, No Restaurants, Conbini Food Only.
A peek into the Adventure...
We picked up the car in Tokyo, drove through the night and started at Nachi Taisha
You can see the Nachi Taisha Video on YouTube Here: https://youtu.be/QtAOCezsCf0
From here the goals were simple:
1. Get some rest
2. Get to the Kyoto area before dark
But between bear warnings, and getting distracted by random abandoned tunnels... (both of which would quickly become a theme in this years adventure) things took a bit of a turn.
We eventually did make it to our destination though.
High on the list of Potentially Haunted spots that Victor wanted to hit up (specifically, at night) was a particular tunnel. This one proved to be a little more frightening than even I had expected.
In the video, we keep this one to a minimum, because it feels like a "deserves its own video" type of spot~
And it was from here that things started to go wrong. One of the spots that we were looking forward to the most... an abandoned, yet accessible spot, had been closed off. It turns out that an NPO had purchased it, locked it off, and made it so people could no longer go take a look.
And so after spending about half a day trying to get to it, we learned this and had no choice but not move on. But that is ok, because our next stop... was the island of Shikoku.
Shikoku is by far one of the least explored and most beautiful places in Japan. The island is filled with hidden treasure and is home to areas known as Japan's Unexplored Zones.
At this point we wanted nothing more than to set up camp, get some rest, and find an open-air bath with no people. And that is exactly what we did
And so there we were, on Shikoku Island with little more than a rough plan and a few ideas. And that is when I caught wind of an abandoned school that seemed to have a café and a hostel in it. It wasn't too far from where we were, and I was naturally quite curious. And so we jumped back on the road, only to end up distracted and trudging through a bush that would leave a moderately mean mark on my arm for weeks to come...
But then we came across the school
The drive was obviously much more terrifying than we were expecting (for patrons, I have uploaded the full cliff-hanger drive along with commentary as a separate video already because... just wow)
Arriving at the school, it turns out that both the café and hostel were closed. A man named Yohei was there. He lived there. Completely alone. I was intrigued, and after about 5 minutes of talking, I asked him if I could grab cameras and record a few things. He delighted in the idea, and before I knew it, a video was born.
Abandoned School Vid1: https://youtu.be/-i2Ndgrgcu8 Vid2: https://youtu.be/ZC6Bq-8ATTw
The entire experience was almost like a dream.
And before we knew it we were on the road again, headed to a village that had replaced humans with scarecrow-esqe dolls known as KAKASHI.
But along the way there were a few places that we wanted to check out...
but little did we know that it would not be that simple
(of course it wouldn't... why would it?)
While on a drive that was seemingly no different than any other, a kind gentleman stopped us. He said that the road we were using was under construction (wasn't the first time we had to give up on a road during this trip) but he had good news... There was a detour route. We were saved! or so we thought..
What he didn't tell us is that several stretches of the road would be barely the width of our car, and would have hidden dangers that we could not have predicted...
We did make it to the village through, and if you haven't seen it yet, you can see the full video of it right here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxiOdrVreSQ
After this we had a choice to make; Head to our next stop in Shikoku, and risk not being able to make it back to Tokyo on time, or head North and cross back over to the main island.
Long before starting this trip we had made an agreement; if we travel again, we don't want to feel rushed. We want to truly enjoy and be able to capture each spot. So we made the decision to head back to the main land. We had bought ourselves at least a day, and Victor had a single photo he wanted to grab in Kyoto that he felt could only be done at around 3 am.
It was a long drive, with adventures of its own, but we made it into Kyoto around 3 pm.
Our next goal... Find a campsite to set up at until about 2 am.
Out big challenge... Flooded rivers and bear warnings.
Spoiler Alert (for the upcoming video)... we get the photo. In to Kyoto, grab the shot, and out of Kyoto... like we were never there!
And from here we only have a few plans left, but packed into a very short time.
You see, there's this tunnel. A tunnel that we have wanted to hit up for some time, and we think we should be able to make out out to. But there's also this amazing town.
The trouble is that we only have one day until the rain hits hard again, and we have to make a choice... and so we do
The goal at this point was simple. Capture a gorgeous town in the rain before the sun comes up and people fill the streets, and then... Mount Fuji
But there was a complication... They wouldn't let us anywhere near the base of the mountain. You see, Victor has climbed 7 times, and this year would have been his 8th. But with the world in its current state, they had closed off the mountain this year. With some pretty extreme measures including gates, cameras, alarms and more. I wanted to show this to Victor. A Fuji like he had never seen. But access was denied and the trip came to a halt as we were out of time.
An anti-climactic, near-heart-breaking end to the adventure itself. So (off camera) we headed back, grabbed pizza and beer, and looked through our footage.
And now here I am weeks later. Wrapping up the final touches on the edit when I decide to call Victor. He has no idea that I am even making this video. He seems excited.
It's at this point that has an idea... and idea that changes everything.
And what's more... is it's in the video~
Comments
Evan Mutton
Awesome brother, too bad you and Victor couldn’t do everything you wanted to
Albert Nakano
This is a huge update on Patreon. Must have been a lot of work. Thanks!
Tyler Tugman
SO. EXCITED. Actually about to head out camping; and even more excited to find out I'll be back just in time for the video. Thanks for the post, Norm!
Stephen W. Evans
Very excited for this! Not only a master of video and film, but also quite the storyteller! I'm on the edge of my seat already ...
Dan
Thanks for sharing the whole story Norm. I'm sorry it wasn't able to go as planned but from the videos I've seen so far you guys still had an amazing time and made some amazing memories :) I look forward to the big video :)
NightTimeCollector
I'm in love with the simple, yet thrilling life you live. You're making me seriously consider photography lol
Sweetarchangel
Oooh, can't wait for the video, sounds exciting.
Tomo
This got me extra excited for the upcoming video! What a great post ☺️
Judith Goudzwaard
More to come?😃 Intriguing! Is your camping gear just as fancy as your camera gear, what do you use?
