waddo

TiHabanero

Watching these videos has given me a strong urge to put a countryside tour of Japan on my bucket list. Thoroughly enjoyed taking the trip with you! Thank you so much for posting.

waddo

You're welcome and it's a great country. It also has more than its fair share of ugliness, so trip planning is important.

Prowler 

Thanks again. Two questions. What are all those, not quite, tunnels? They look like snow/Avalanche shelters as we have in the Sierra Nevada mountains of California.

And why did the traffic in the tunnel around minute 31 switch driving sides? I got used to watching folks drive on the left so that tunnel traffic really stood out. Or did you put the film in the projector backwards 😳

waddo

Yes those tunnels are for snow; though in Japan many public works are just to feed tax money to construction companies with local politicians getting a cut. I would guess 70% are of this type so those tunnels have no real purpose. That's why there are beautiful smooth roads over mountains (which we take) that have no traffic.

The very long tunnel was being repaired, which was very luck for us as our timing gave us a safe and weird ride on the wrong side of the road with no traffic. It was a very weird feeling.