JOURNEY ACROSS JAPAN: FROZEN FRONTIER ❄️🚂 Day 2: Riding Japan’s Snow Train & the Extreme East ❄️ (Patreon Diary)

With Journey Across Japan: Frozen Frontiers wrapped filming in east Hokkaido, here’s the Patreon Daily Diary of what we got up to in the second episode of the series!

DAY 2: The Mythical Snow Train 🚂

Japan is the land of trains. Everyone loves a sleeper train or the Shinkansen, but few have ever covered the mythical Hokkaido winter steam train that operates for just a few weeks of the year.

On the second day of our trip we were lucky to bag tickets - albeit just two. Meaning none of the crew could come and only one other person could join me for the ride.

There was only one way to decide the lucky passenger; a sled race.

The race was over fast - Natsuki reached the bottom before Joey had barely even moved and like Charlie Bucket entering the Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory, he was awarded the ticket to ride alongside me on the train.

Still everyone got to at least ride one train - we opened the video in an abandoned train station with a fully accessible train, not too dissimilar from the original Dr Jelly commercial!

I even got to pretend I was Spiderman.
- Even if I allegedly look more like Doc Oc in real life.

But soon Natsuki and I were off and away, rocketing across the snowy marshes of Hokkaido, while a sad Joey looked on at the side of the track, dreaming of what could have been.

Within the train, it was almost like a party atmosphere. It felt like a scene out of the Great Gatsby, with everyone downing beer and eating snacks.

Natsuki and I fled to the cafe car to tuck into some snack and Sapporo Classic beer to while away our two hour journey. I'll save most of the interior shots for the video!

With the train out of the way, we headed two hours east to Japan’s most eastern point - Cape Nossapu.

The region is famous for its sushi and so on the last leg of our journey we tucked into a staggering amount of Tuna and salmon, fished out of the nearby waters in the Tsugaru strait.

At last it was on to the most eastern point, where we faced the coldest temperatures of our entire trip.

At -16 degrees celcius, it might just be the coldest weather I’ve experienced in Japan and we tried to wrap things up fast as we stood, woefully underdressed in my case, in the agonisingly cold winter winds.

 
Today was one hell of a day and tomorrow we head back in land to an Ainu village and Japan’s coldest town for the ultimate rap battle. Find out more on the next Patreon diary post!

If you missed the Diary of Day 1, be sure to go back and read it first here!
Read: https://www.patreon.com/posts/journey-across-1-78903427