【4K】Japanese Four Seasons in 4K. World Heritage of Shirakawa-go and Gokayama.
Over the rugged Hakusan mountain range from the Sea of Japan are the villages of Shirakawa-go, situated on the banks of the Shogawa River in Gifu Prefecture. Along the Shogawa River, there are also the villages of Suganuma and Ainokura in Gokayama, Toyama Prefecture. These three villages constructed in the architectural style known as gassho-zukuri, marked by their steep thatched roofs, are inscribed as World Heritage sites. Surrounded by mountains, they were called out-of-the-way places because they were snowbound in winter and isolated from the rest of the world. With special permission, a drone equipped with a high-definition 8K camera was used to capture their spectacular scenery in spring, summer, fall, and winter. We took a closer look at Japan’s original landscape. Autumn in Shirakawa-go and Gokayama, visited in early November. The beech, oak, and maple trees all turn color at once, enveloping the gassho villages entirely. Then comes winter. The cold, wet winds blowing from the Sea of Japan dump huge amounts of snow here, sometimes up to five meters a year, making this one of the heaviest snowfall areas in Japan. In Shirakawa-go and Gokayama, after a snowfall, the snow is removed from the 12-meter-high gassho roofs. Please enjoy the beautiful scenery of Shirakawa-go and Gokayama, filmed throughout the four seasons!