So after five years and a hundred videos we're finally gonna feature some
food in a video that doesn't contain meat in it.
I know there are many vegans and vegetarians that watch this channel
and it's a miracle that you watch at all
given how nearly every video features either Wagyu beef pork or fried chicken
but today we're visiting the ancient northern capital of Hiraizumi, a town
which once even rivaled Kyoto in size and scale and on our trip we plan to do
some meditation, explore one of Japan's most picturesque temples, and of course
eat some vegan dishes.
I say way because my good friend Ryotaro is going to be
coming along as well and who knows amidst the meditation and the vegan
cuisine I might come back a better person.
Yeah it's pretty unlikely.
So we're at a UNESCO world heritage site; Motsu-ji temple.
It's been here since 850AD
So it's most almost like 1200 years.
1200 years. Older than Ryotaro even.
Just two years older than I.
And we're gonna do something called zazen which is
a Buddhist practice; the best way to summarise up is it's that thing where
they hit you with a stick while you meditate.
That is too much of summarising mate.
It's a bit of a simplification, but what's the actual purpose of this Zazen kind of Buddhist practice.
So it's almost like a meditation but this is
this is to stimulate your five senses.
Stimulate your five senses?
And enable you to concentrate even more than you can.
So by the end of this I'll be like in touch with myself.
In touch with yourself; yeah that sounds very romantic.
But it's not.
Alright well let's go and stimulate our five senses.
Zazen literally means seated meditation with the posture requiring the
practitioner to sit with folded legs and arms on a small cushion.
For one hour we sat in silence with the impending presence of the stick.
The awakening stick is used to gently slap the meditator to reset their concentration
or to reinvigorate those who are struggling to meditate under tiredness or stress.
It's not a form of punishment, you actually ask for it by bowing and
putting your palms together and unsurprisingly it was difficult for me
to hide my delight at Ryotaro getting whacked.
It's more difficult than you think to concentrate especially when you
are incredibly aware of your feet being frozen solid by the cold temperatures
The stick didn't hurt thankfully; you kind of find yourself lost in the smell
of the incense, the cool crisp morning air, the sound of the bell being rung,
You feel you're in a heightened state of awareness with your senses and it's
quite nice it's a nice way of starting the day I guess, but given its the morning
It's still 9 o'clock I was trying a little bit to not fall asleep
it's easily done what you're doing that.
Before heading for lunch I asked our
guide about the kind of benefits you'd get from doing zazen regularly.
If you could summarize the experience in three words, what would those words be?
Refreshing, concentrating, crispy whacked.
What?
Oh Chris being whacked
I though you said crispy whacked.
Like some sort of new biscuit snack.
Crispy whacked.
See you can think up new products for biscuits when you meditate.
Having meditated for an hour and being whacked with a stick we went for an
early lunch at a nearby restaurant serving vegan cuisine inspired by Zen Buddhism
So today is the day I finally give something back to vegan viewers recently
we've been having a lot of meat in the videos in fact I think it's always
just been meat in the videos; this is the first time we've actually had some sort
of vegan dish.
First time in how many years?
In 5 years!
It's called Shojin Ryouri; Shojin literally means Buddhist cuisine and ryouri means cooking.
And it's an array of wonderful multicolored dishes, each and every one is Vegan.
Actually at first glance it doesn't look like a vegan dish,
when look at everything you think these mushrooms must contain some sort of
chicken or pork in
This tempure must have some shrimp or fish in.
It's all Vegan; 100% Vegan.
So this is sesame tofu with wasabi on the top.
This is vegetable tempura
It's a Koya tofu deep fried
and they put some hot ginger sauce on the top with the mushrooms.
It's a sashimi konyaku potato
and they actually slice it so that it looks like a sashimi.
It's soba buckwheat noodles on the side
and there's seaweed on top.
It's actually sticky rice wrapped with seaweed.
Tempura is an absolute miracle you take a
nice freshly picked vegetable and then dip it in batter
and it just makes it so much better; you know tempura was actually the first
Japanese food I ever had back when I was about nine and that was what I decided
Japanese food must be good, it'll start there.
To be fair one of the reasons we
haven't made a video on vegan or vegetarian cuisine is it's quite
difficult to come by if you're eating out many people that who I know who live
in Japan that are vegans cook at home and that's the way they get around it.
If you eat something like soba noodles or udon noodles yes they
are vegan but the dipping sauce broth they come in usually often contains
things like fish.
Tempura is a good one though.
Yeah but the dipping sauce actually contains fish bones so what want you to be
careful is that we have two kinds of broth when it comes to Japanese
food normally it's a tuna base broth or Konbu based broth which is seaweed based
broth which is okay for vegans to eat.
So if you ask the restaurant for eating soba or udon, ask them to bring the konbu
which is the seaweed broth and with that you can get by.
Ok, that's quite a useful point there.
A good friend of mine who is a vegan
his name's Regan, when he lived in Japan he used to just eat nuts from the
supermarket; nuts and bananas, but I think he was just being a bit austere.
There are ways around it, so if you do your research you don't have to let it get in a way of your trip.
So we're about to journey out into the countryside to see one of the most
most picturesque temples in all of Tohoku and we're going to get there by
an ancient method of transportation; the same kind of transportation they would
have used about a thousand years ago.
I am of course talking about go-karts.
So we're gonna drive to this really famous photogenic temple
with this go-cart and it's 50CC and it can go up to speeds of 70 km/h and how
much is that in the miles?
Not a clue mate.
I've seen a few cars driving down the road with rather surprised and shocked
looking drivers seeing a go-kart with a chubby foreigner just driving it down the road.
It's a bit weird I think; quite a rare sight.
So here we are at the Takkoku no Iwaya temple
There's a temple in a cave
Yeah that's a pretty dramatic looking spot
It's got a bit of a sinister story to it
There used to be the Ainu people
the native Japanese people living here in a cave before this temple was
built but the new Japanese people came and tried to get rid of them.
So you got rid of the natives, forced them out
Yeah forced them out
So they actually took the cave and then they actually built the temple
to cover the cave.
Bloody hell yes. That is quite sinister.
Steal their cave and put a temple in front of it.
So they could not get in.
Within the temple there are 33 statues of the God of War Bishamonten
However, they're only put on public display every 33 years and given that the last time
was 2010 you'll have to wait until 2043 when you can revisit the temple in
your flying car. While you're waiting 33 years there you can still grab yourself
some good fortune.
So now I bought a good luck charm and this good luck charm
is said to be the strongest in the whole Japan
Why is that?
I'm not sure; it's just said to be the strongest
and people say that it can make you rich
make your butler go away
Make your what go away?
Your bad luck
I thought you said make your butler go away.
That's not good luck. I hate it when my butler goes away.
And it also makes Chris go away.
it says that the you should hang this on to your house entrance
does it say
anything particular
well here I can't really read it
You can't read it? It's the best 1000 yen you ever spent.
Yeah it might work you know it may just take Chris away from my sight
And it did! And it did!
Despite getting slapped in the face with numerous flies while
driving I do quite want a go-kart now as fast as a scooter but with the comfort
of a real chair; the perfect way to explore the countryside.
Hiraizumi is
about a two-hour ride north from Tokyo by bullet train or 30 minutes from
Sendai and if you're interested in visiting any of the places we visited on
our trip you can find the details in the description box below
but for now guys as always many thanks for watching we'll see you next time.
I want one. I don't know how much it costs. I don't know how much they costed or
where to buy them, but I want a go cart for Christmas. So if father Christmas is
watching, you know what to do.