But seeing as it's that time of year again this year, I wanted to take a peek inside a japanese cemetery.

Let's go this way.

Look, look how creepy this tunnel like.

But this here is Yanacocha Cemetery and it's actually one of the biggest cemeteries in all of Tokyo.

This entrance way that you see right here comes in from the Nip O T station side.

And actually if you look right over here, you can see the station and here some of the sounds, the trains in the city in the background and juxtaposed against that right here is the cemetery.

Now this cemetery is quite large and goes on for some time.

But if you're anything like me, you're probably sitting there wondering, well, why are you walking through a cemetery now?

I know that depending on the country, the approach to cemeteries can be quite different.

Some are very private spaces and some are much more open.

And here in Japan there's actually a public road that runs through this and this is a very popular spot for people to come and cycle or walk their dogs or even in the spring of very popular cherry blossom place.

In fact, if you look right here, there's an entire little stadium space within the cemetery for practicing things like baseball.

Mhm.

It's not uncommon to see this space being used and there's even a net up above to stop any baseballs or anything from flying out into the cemetery itself.

And even if we exit out of this park right here, there's a Children's playground right here.

Now there's a park in this cemetery that I'm actually going to show you a little bit later.

That has a little bit of a creepy story.

But for now let's go explore the cemetery itself, people.

Mhm, mm hmm.

I walked through here.

My original worry for tonight is that it was going to be too dark to film any of this gets pretty laid out right now.

But we got an overcast night and the lights of the city just reflect and fill up the sky like that over there.

That's the city of Wino and it's just kind of this nice soft box light to see the cemetery with, it's so overcast tonight that even the Tokyo sky tree has just been engulfed in clouds.

Okay, I can barely see it coming from this area from neat booty station.

By the way, there's a lot of foot traffic and people walking their dogs in this cemetery at night if you head this way and break to the side will actually come across something that makes this particular cemetery a little bit, maybe a little more than a little bit special because you see while the area of Hanukkah is really well known for its high density of temples.

This cemetery, which is run by the city of Tokyo still allow some residents of the city to apply to be rested here, which would be a huge honor because this is the final resting place of Tokugawa Yoshinobu Japan's final shotgun or I guess military Dick Toral leader.

He's rested right here in this cemetery down this way a bit and we will go check it out later on being prepared.

It's slightly anticlimactic.

But as you can see this road cuts right through the cemetery with little walking pass off to the side and many of the trees here, our cherry blossom trees.

So this area can get very, very crowded in the spring but also in the fall, the colors in the cemetery in the area around can be really beautiful.

One of my favorite parks.

Um no parque is also just down the road as well as Yonica ginza, an area really well known for street food.

The very first time that I ever visited a cemetery, I was actually brought here by a local and at first I was really apprehensive about the idea of wow look at that tree trunk.

We're just coming into the area back here off of the main path.

But then I got into here and you would always see people walking their dogs or reading the different tombstones And I never really imagined a cemetery is a place to just go and take a walk.

But Janica is kind of one of those places.

It's almost like a tourist destination for some Japanese.

A lot of people come here to visit because there are famous actors or novelists or important people through japanese history more than I could possibly name, who have been arrested here in this cemetery.

Like I have been through here dozens and dozens of times and every single time that I come with a japanese friend, they always go on this hunt for some famous person that I've never heard of a different person every single time, but it's always a bit of a learning experience and you get that sense of exploration.

So if you ever get the chance to come here with a japanese friend, definitely do that, admittedly it's been some time since I've come out here.

But the park I was talking about earlier, the one of the interesting backstory is right over here actually, a little bit of a kids playground back here.

The first time I saw this, it really threw me for a loop.

I couldn't wrap my head around the idea of a kids park inside of a cemetery.

Now I later learned that temples which are often a part of japanese cemeteries sometimes run daycare centers and originally I thought that would explain the parks, but it seems that this particular park has a story which is just a little bit darker.

Worry actually starts right here Where there used to be this pagoda which was burnt down in 1959 in a murder suicide.

Now the Pagoda had stood here for over 160 years that had survived the elements that had survived the war and then it gets burned down and instead they wanted to build a big beautiful park that never really played out.

And what they ended up with was a set of swings, a single slide and this sandbox over here right here and the size that you can use it if you want to.

But because of the number of cats in the area that they want you to recover it with this little tarp when you're finished using it to give you an idea of the scale of this place.

This is where we are right here near the remains of the pagoda.

This right here is where we came in.

We've only come this far and there's still all of this left.

This is the graveyard of the shotgun.

It, if you find these signs right here, this kind of points you in the direction of the graveyard of the Tokugawa family.

I'm pretty sure this straight right here is the last street with the actual lighting we're gonna be heading down this way.

Yeah, God.

And so that's okay.

I brought a light.

Yeah, yeah, mm hmm.

Yeah, mm hmm.

And this wall right here, This is the graveyard of the Tokugawa family and this is why I said it would be moderately anticlimactic.

The area is actually gated.

So you can't really get inside or see inside.

Yeah, it is like this, oh all the way around, I'll beat it still feels like there's plenty else to see in the area.

But can you imagine traveling from a foreign coming all the way out here to see this graveyard and you get here and it's gated and close I guess now with the internet and blogs and everything probably less of a problem than it used to be.

But still that that would be disappointing.

This cemetery is honestly massive.

I don't think I've ever actually come into the area behind that graveyard there.

In fact, I can't remember the last time I came out here at night.

Still flabbergasted by the way how bright the sky is considering it is almost midnight right now.

Who but I did promise you guys a long time ago that I would come out here and do a piece on this and admittedly this did turn out to be a little less spooky or creepy and a bit more of a slightly informative and kind of peaceful nighttime walk.

But I hope that you've enjoyed it as much as I have.

It would mean the world to me if you haven't already.