00:00Hey guys, I know if you have our nature and environment in Japan playlist. As you guys would know, Hokkaido
00:05is the northernmost part of Japan. As a result, it gets between 4 and 15 metres of snow in winter,
00:13and temperatures go down to minus 15 degrees.
00:15So that's why we came in spring, because we figured that it would be easier to travel around without the
00:21snow on the road. Interestingly though, we can still see the signs of how much snow they get. So for
00:27example, on the left hand side there, you can see that fence running along, which is going to start again
00:31in a moment. That's to help reduce the amount of snow drift that's blowing across the road.
00:37So you can imagine if they're getting 4 to 15 metres of snow a year, that the snow drifts would
00:43be constantly blowing onto the road, and they'd be constantly removing it. So they put those fences up to try
00:48and reduce how much snow comes.
00:51So these are everywhere. So obviously, Hokkaido has all these big open spaces that we've been showing you in previous
00:57videos. Result of that, of course, is they get some serious wind and some serious snow drifting.
01:04So, interesting, isn't it? And these just go forever. These barriers just go on and on and on.
01:12And most of them seem to be sort of permanently fixed. However, these ones seem to have the ability to
01:17be open. Don't know why they do that, but these ones are sort of open to let the wind through,
01:23or for some reason.
01:27And this was sort of a natural version of that. So both sides of this were big open areas, big
01:33open fields, and they'd planted these trees, two or three trees thick, little forest along both sides of the road.
01:43Which clearly seemed to be as a natural barrier against the snow, to protect the road, which is a good
01:49idea, isn't it?
01:51So whether they harvest those trees, we've showed you the big timber industry in Hokkaido already, so maybe they'll harvest
01:58those trees as well.
01:59This is the other interesting thing. See these arrows above the road?
02:04So the idea of that, of course, is once you cover the road with a metre or so of snow,
02:08you can't see the edges of the road anymore.
02:10So those arrows up on the poles above the road are to show you where the edge of the road
02:15is.
02:16So you can imagine if everything was white, the whole countryside was white, you'd just be following those arrows to
02:24stay on the road.
02:26So here we've got the barrier fence there on the left, and we've got the arrows above the road showing
02:31us where the edge of the road is.
02:33So obviously at the moment we don't need them because we can see the road.
02:35But you can just imagine in winter, those barriers that have snow a couple of metres up the side of
02:41them.
02:42The road would be covered in white, you wouldn't be able to see where the edge was, so you'd just
02:46be following these arrows.
02:51Amazing, isn't it? Just imagine.
02:54We would like to come back in winter and see all this.
02:57But we just know from what we're seeing that there'd be a lot of these places that we've been and
03:02that we're showing you that we wouldn't be able to get to in winter.
03:06As we'll show you shortly, there's a lot of road barriers that we can see where they just close roads,
03:12and we see it on the news every year.
03:14There'll be roads get shut down with cars on them, and they have to go and rescue the people out
03:19of the cars.
03:19And, you know, we see that on the news every year.
03:22So this is what's happening in Hokkaido this week, you know.
03:25So we're fully aware of that, which is why we didn't go in winter, because we wanted to get right
03:30round the place and have a good look around, which we just couldn't do if half the roads were closed
03:36and there's metres of snow everywhere.
03:39Not real practical for camper driving a camper van either, obviously.
03:49Isn't it amazing?
03:53So whether these are solar powered or not, but they were just flashing constantly.
03:57The other thing that we saw, what we didn't enjoy very much, the condition of the roads.
04:02Usually in Honshu, the roads are usually kept in really good condition.
04:07However, Hokkaido, because of the snow and ice, it just destroys the roads.
04:11The snow and the ice destroys the roads.
04:13And then we saw a lot of road work.
04:15They're obviously trying to repair the worst parts of it, but they've only got a few months to repair it
04:19all.
04:19And then it gets snow and ice again.
04:21So the condition of the roads was really bad.
04:24It was one thing we didn't enjoy.
04:25We loved, absolutely loved Hokkaido, but these roads were just terrible.
04:31Huge potholes in them, really bad condition.
04:34Most of the time, not always.
04:36There were some pieces of road that were quite nice, but the majority of it was pretty rough.
04:42This is another interesting thing too.
04:43On Honshu, usually the fire hydrants are actually underground.
04:46And they have like a manhole cover that you've got to lift to get the fire hydrant.
04:50But of course, that wouldn't work when the ground's covered in snow.
04:53So they put the tall sign there, a couple of meters in the air, and then the fire hydrant not
04:59buried in the ground.
05:00So the firefighters can get to it if they need to.
05:03So that stood out to us, because we don't normally see that.
05:05The other thing is the design of the buildings.
05:09So interesting.
05:10Sort of European style, isn't it?
05:12You know, no roof gutters, of course, because usually if you have roof gutters on a roof that gets covered
05:18in snow,
05:19it'll just rip the roof gutters off on it.
05:21So no roof gutters, and real European style roofs to deal with all the snow.
05:30Interesting, living on Honshu, visiting Hokkaido, all these things stood out to us,
05:36because it's just really different from what we experience.
05:39That house we just saw there with the ladder going up to the roof, so you can get up there
05:42and clear your snow off.
05:45So it's interesting, without having the snow there, we could see all these things that were there because of the
05:51snow.
05:52How beautiful is that scenery there, by the way?
05:54What a beautiful, beautiful place Hokkaido is.
05:57Here's another thing we don't see on Honshu.
05:59Garages.
06:01So garages were really, really common.
06:03Obviously, if you've got a few meters of snow and minus 15 degrees,
06:08you want to get the vehicles inside if you can.
06:10And so garages were really, really common, which really, again, really stood out to us,
06:14because we don't see them on Honshu, usually not so common.
06:18Check it out, they've almost all got garages, almost.
06:25So that was interesting for us too.
06:34So this is right up in the north.
06:36This is almost the most northern point where we are here.
06:42Oh, traffic lights.
06:44Usually on Honshu, the traffic lights run horizontally.
06:48However, up there, they put them vertically so they don't get such a buildup of snow on them,
06:52don't get so heavy from the snow.
06:55So they have them vertical instead of horizontal.
07:01There's another one of the fences.
07:02But what we actually want to show you here is the barriers to close the road.
07:07So these are really common.
07:08We saw these as further we got north, or the closer we got to mountains, the more you saw these.
07:14So it really gives you a bit of an idea of what it must be like in winter.
07:16There must be a lot of roads closed where you just can't get to where you want to go.
07:21So it made us sort of aware that, yeah, we were wise to come in spring because winter,
07:27a lot of these places that we're showing you, we just might not be able to get to.
07:31Probably the most spectacular thing we saw as far as the snow thing,
07:34this is out in the middle of nowhere, right up the north.
07:37And there's a big sign up saying emergency shelter.
07:40So you can imagine if it's blowing serious wind and it's serious snow
07:45and the road's getting deeper and deeper,
07:47you can pull your vehicle into this shelter and shelter from the conditions.
07:53Emergency shelter it was called.
07:54Emergency road shelter.
07:57Isn't that amazing?
07:58I mean, this is right up the north.
07:59So down in the south we didn't see any of that.
08:01But up the north we saw a couple of them.
08:03Here's another one out in a big open area
08:05where you can imagine the snow would be blowing around quite a bit.
08:09And you can see there's not a tunnel
08:11because you can see it's got like a sunroof, right?
08:13Let the sun in, let the light in.
08:16But again, it said the same thing.
08:18There was a big sign that said emergency road shelter.
08:21So you can just imagine if the road's got to a point where it's impassable,
08:24you can drive your car in here and shelter from the conditions.
08:29Gives you a bit of an idea how intense it is, doesn't it?
08:32Life-threatening, in fact.
08:34Anyway, there was that.
08:37More videos, coming soon.
Comments