These 4K Videos of Japan Will Get You on the Next Plane to Tokyo

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Ready your passports.

This YouTube channel, called TokyoStreetView, offers hours and hours of ultra HD videos of daily life in Japan. The word “Tokyo” is in its name, but the collection comes from all over the archipelago nation—a nation that’s really freaking scenic, as these videos will remind you.

The channel captures the kaleidoscope of Japan’s beauty: cherry blossom-dotted sidewalks, ultramodern architecture, Shinto shrines, neon alleyways, manicured gardens. And they’re each around five minutes long, so they’re perfect for moments of Zen, or for living vicariously through the good folks in the vids long enough to get you trolling Kayak.com.

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First off, since it’s fall, here’s what the season looks like in Nikko, a small town in mountainous Tochigi prefecture, just north of Tokyo. Fire red maple leaves, trickling streams, sweeping mountains. The place has the whole “autumnal majesty” figured out.


Next up is Shibuya, home to the famous “scramble crosswalk” that you’ve probably seen as B-roll footage in every documentary or TV show about Japan you’ve ever watched. Marvel at the cleanliness.


For your food porn fix, nothing is more satisfying than watching the incredibly careful assemblage of freshly cut and prepared sushi:


Next up is a flower festival with Mt. Fuji, one of Earth’s most iconic peaks, serving as backdrop to this never-ending sea of fuchsia:


Tokyo’s Shinjuku district at night will leave you craving hot delicious noodles at some hole-in-the-wall ramen joint:


A virtual tour of Tokyo’s Meiji Shrine, complete with a wall of old school, intricately painted sake barrels made of straw:


And we’ll end with an army of Japanese macaques bathing each other in a natural, snowy hot spring on yet another beautiful mountain.

Contact the author at bryan@gizmodo.com, or follow him on Twitter.

This post originally ran on November 6, 2015.

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