Abandoned Doctor’s Mansion in Japan – Why Did His Family Vanish?

Abandoned Doctor’s Mansion in Japan – Why Did His Family Vanish?

I think we have not checked out this 
part, even. Look, have we? Did we? No,   not at all. Not at all. We have not been here yet. When we first saw this house from the road, 
it didn’t really tempt us to stop. It looked   decent enough—maybe abandoned, maybe not—but 
nothing that screamed “Explore me.” Still, after a short back-and-forth we decided 
to give it a shot, and that turned out to be one of the best decisions of the entire trip.
The moment we stepped inside everything changed. It was like stepping into a time capsule: a 
perfectly preserved traditional Japanese home filled to the brim with memories. We weren’t 
expecting that at all. From the outside we thought it might just be another empty house 
with a few broken chairs and peeling walls, but this was different. This was 
personal. Clothes were still hung, books were still stacked, family photos lined 
the shelves; it felt like the people who lived here had just stepped out and never returned.
And then we discovered the real surprise. Attached to the house was an entire doctor’s 
clinic, fully equipped, untouched. It was clear this place had 
belonged to someone important: Dr Uda, a rural doctor who served this village 
for over forty years. One of the awards inside marked his 88 th birthday in 2002, and 
since then everything has just remained. “Look, this is a place I never thought we would   ever find. We’re standing in a 
medical GP’s office in Japan.” “Yeah—well, a multifunctional 
rural doctor’s hub, I would say.” “That’s a great explanation. Welcome back, 
everybody, to the Bros of DK! I’m Leslie;   behind the camera we have Luke.”
“Hey!” “And we’re going to take you on an amazing 
adventure through a Japanese mountain doctor’s office. I think that’s the best explanation 
I can give to it. Raichi Uda—those Japanese names still don’t roll off my tongue—but 
Raichi Uda was the doctor who operated for forty years in this beautiful doctor’s office, 
and I think this is the waiting room, right?” “Yeah, I think so too.”
“A little fountain here in the middle.”  “Yeah.”
“Or what is it, even? I don’t know.” “Yeah, I was also thinking of a mountain 
fountain, but it’s… made of—it seems like—” “The Japanese always have weird things.”
“Yeah, but it’s weird and extremely beautiful.” Up there some philosophical phrases: I translated 
them. It’s something regarding the idea that you have to be a doctor and provide care to the people 
and not care about money or anything like that. And the time has stopped—the clock eliminated. 
I’m ready to show you this place; I am so excited. First off, here we have a very, very interesting 
room. We believe this to be a small surgical room in this place. You can see it from 
all the tools over here in the cabinet; it’s filled with different tools. But first I want 
to show you this—The Ultimate Guide to Rebuilding It’s truly a time capsule, right, Rick?
“Yeah.”  Which reminds me of this tool—we couldn’t quite 
figure out its function. At first we thought it was a sterilizer. There are lots of different 
sterilizing tools over here. We need some help from doctors in the comment section to 
explain to us what these ancient tools are. It has a foot pedal over here that lifts 
up this bucket, but—yeah—no idea at all. Again, no idea, but it looks really cool: 
all his jars and all his different tools and everything are still lying 
here. Absolutely incredible. “Wow.”
“What is inside these drawers?” “Oh, there are even letters and everything 
in here. I’m not going to touch it,   because I’m not wearing gloves today—I forgot 
them at the hotel. Excuse me for that. It’s not ideal—you go to a doctor’s office and then 
you forget your gloves. That’s horrible.” You even have the sink over here—a wooden sink, 
actually. Wow, looks very old. So Dr Uda operated in this office for forty years and got awarded 
numerous medals and achievements for being a doctor in this town and for having the dedication 
to serve these people. And then this cabinet, still filled with all different tools. So many 
different tools—scalpels, even bloody bandages still—oh my god—wrapped around… You can see 
that this has been heavily used over the years. This should basically be a museum, this house. I 
cannot even believe that we’re standing in here. And, of course, the surgical 
bed over here in the middle. I think most people from this town have 
probably lain on this bed, dead or alive. I think even young people that live 
here still were treated by Dr Uda.  “Was he a small doctor? Because he 
has the stairs next to it—wasn’t that for the patients to get on the medical bed?”
“Of course, yeah. This is for patients, indeed.” Even his doctor’s bag is standing 
here—leather doctor’s bag,   just what you would expect.
“There’s still something in it.” “Oh—still full of bandages and everything. 
That’s insane. Mind-blown—that’s what I am. But there’s so much more to show in 
this place. This place is massive.” One of the first things we noticed about this 
house is just how big it is, especially for Japan. While most Japanese homes—particularly in 
cities—are built small and efficient, out here in the countryside it was more common to see larger 
family houses like this one. Before the 1980s many rural homes were designed for multigenerational 
living: you’d often find grandparents, parents, children, sometimes even aunts and uncles all 
sharing the same roof. That would explain the size of this place, even though today it seems 
only a few people were living here toward the end. Another thing we were surprised by was 
the condition of the house. So many   abandoned homes we’ve explored across 
Japan have collapsed or rotted away, usually because they’re built entirely from wood, 
but this one is different. It has a solid stone foundation and sturdier materials overall, which 
likely helped it withstand time and the elements. You’re going to have the adventure of a lifetime 
in here, because this is still the doctor’s office but there’s also residential—like his house. 
One of the biggest abandoned houses in Japan   we have found is attached to this place, 
and it’s awesome because it’s from—yeah, quote-unquote—a wealthy family.
This is a division—oh no,   a privacy screen, yeah—so you can change to 
your patient’s gown, or what’s it called, something like that. You can see—so this room 
was most likely used for—yeah, changing room. Oh, and this was—I researched this 
piece—this is actually a surgical light,   and here you could focus a 
beam of light on a surgery, for example, that you’re doing and see 
exactly what are these meters—yeah, it’s kind of hard to see, it’s very dusty.
Yeah, this is a 1960s-1970s Japanese doctor’s-office tool mostly used in 
rural areas, and also the gynaecology bench underneath here for different—birth 
dripper? Very vintage. Normally it’s now all been done in plastic sacks, but back then 
they had glass jars to put the medicine inside. There’s even an oxygen tank here.
“Oh, you’re all right?”  Still quite up-to-date tools, I would say. “Yeah, it’s quite a blend of very old 
and new, all put together in this place.” And this most likely is like some sort of 
an X-ray machine, or photographing machine. Also, the craftsmanship in this place is 
absolutely wonderful—the high ceilings everywhere. I’m sorry I’m pointing it out 
again, but I just love high ceilings so   much. This is one of those Japanese places as 
well that is built without nails or screws. “Oh really? Come have a look over 
here. You can see these pins here.”  “All right.”
This entire place probably is maybe 100, maybe more, years old, and 
this is built in traditional Japanese fashion. “Oh, there’s some screws 
over here but that’s a door.”  “Oh, but up there in the door 
there’s—yeah, the wooden—oh, wooden pegs.” “Oh, they even have a toilet 
over here. Come, have a look.” This is your favorite type of toilet.
“Oh no.” Japan actually used that toilet for a very long 
time before they had those really chic bidet   toilets that we call them nowadays, with the 
warmed seat and everything and all the buttons on the side.
“Yeah.”  “Oh, look at this little window. Hey!” This is awesome. This is probably a place where 
they produced the medicine. You see this small scale in here, and they could precisely measure 
the medicine that was needed; spectroscope over here, and then also a jar with a microscope—maybe 
a microscope. Yeah, I think you could look—yeah, it’s not working. And then a cabinet still 
filled with all these different types of jars. “Oh, here, there’s another door to the room you 
couldn’t open. You want to have a quick peek?” “But it’s probably—yeah, it’s just storage.”
“Yeah, okay, they needed to store all their stuff.”
This wall here is awesome. And then here, that little desk—beautiful antique 
piece—still filled with everything that he needed to treat his patients. I think this is the 
GP office. Look, this room is so beautiful. That was most likely the surgical office, and 
here we have the general practitioner’s office,   where the person could just lie on the bed and 
have small examinations like throat, nostrils and stuff like that—ear examinations—with a small 
desk in here. They even have these hammers. “Oh, the reflex hammers.”
“Yeah, you can hit the knee with this.” “Oh, is this—he would wear 
this on his head, right?”  “Oh, right, yeah, this is one of those… I 
never understood what it’s for, actually.” “Me neither. Maybe he would have a light on there 
so he could bounce it off to where he’s looking.” “Oh yes, possibly. I don’t know, 
that’s a good explanation, probably.” And then a vacuum chamber here to this side. This 
is actually a steam vacuum chamber—this was the steam-sterilization tool.
“Yeah.”  “Exactly. If you open this up you 
can see there are two rods in there, and then you could slide the tray in there and 
sterilize things back in the time. I think we have better tools like this nowadays, but for 
the time it was awesome to have this here.”  Another sterilization tool—yeah, 
this one works on gas. You can see here the cards—the eye-examination cards.
So besides being a GP, besides being a surgeon, he was also an eye doctor. He did literally 
everything for the people of this place, of this town. Another philosophical 
phrase up there—very proud man. “Does the light still work?”
“No, unfortunately.”  “Well, unfortunately not. I don’t know, Japanese 
houses, they always seem to like work with natural light a lot, and also this room is just lit up 
so naturally. I’m glad the light doesn’t work.” “Yeah, the lights in Japan—they are also always 
very bright. They are fluorescent, white as well.” And also, besides being a doctor, I think 
possibly his wife, Kiyoko—Kyoko—she most likely worked in here as the sort of pharmacist, 
and she gave out all the medicine to the patients that came in here, because this was a pharmacy 
office. You can see here we have the desk, and back here with most likely all the bottles 
and all the medicine—just like you see here on this side with all the small jars, probably 
some medicines that are not allowed to sell anymore nowadays—opioids and stuff like that.
Also here you can see the calendar with the last date of 2005 on there—the last time that 
anybody was in here—that cash register, here. “Yeah, very retro.”
“Yeah, but they still use it in Japan a lot.”  “That’s true.”
“That’s true. Wow.” Look at these floors— all slides so perfect.
“Yeah.” “Yeah, this entire house is, like, very well 
preserved. In most cases Japanese houses, they fall apart after a very short time—ten, 
fifteen years—but this house is still in a very, very nice condition after being abandoned 
for twenty years. The doors slide really   nicely—usually it needs some elbow grease.”
“Yeah, this is a well-built house.” “Yeah, high standard of building quality in here.”
“Oh wow, what did you think was here?” “Oh, this is some sort of a window with that 
paper foil that they put on it, huh? And yeah, I don’t know what’s behind here.”
“They did have a vault back here.”  “Vault?”
“Yeah.” “Yeah, the cabinet and everything.”
“And this bench looks so comfy and still in great condition. Honestly, this would 
be a nice place to sit at. This is most likely   the office itself.”
“Yeah, the office.” “Yeah, cabinet still with some Japanese dolls in 
there, traditionally clothed, and all his books as well—his medical books—and then even information 
with all the phone numbers and everything.” This is old—might have also been a lunchroom.
“Yeah, could have also been the lunchroom.” That ceiling is awesome.
“Yeah. What I really like   about this place is that you can get 
from his office into his house over here, so he literally worked at his house.”
“That’s quite cool, right?”  “Yeah. And he would go to his house through 
an engawa, this is called—you can recognise it by lots of wood and lots of window—because 
an engawa functions as a transitional part from outside to inside and helps natural light flow.”
We have to give kudos to Luke for learning so much about Japanese houses during this trip. I 
really like to learn those little facts about the architecture of these places—and 
engawa, that’s what we’re walking in. “I think also—look—this is one 
of the worst parts of the house, basically the only part that’s decayed. I 
mean, it’s bad, but it’s not super-bad.” “Yeah, this house could definitely still be 
saved, and how cool would it be if you have a house with a sort-of museum doctor’s practice 
attached to it? That would be really cool.” Just check out these hallways that connect 
the house itself—it’s a massive place. And so far we have only found that three 
people used to live in this place:   it was Raichi, his wife Kiyoko, and 
Masao, their son. So three people so far; maybe the grandparents also lived 
in this place, but we’re not sure. I love the construction of this place as 
well. It’s made out of stone plasterwork; you can also see crown moulding in 
this place—something that we have not   seen in many Japanese houses before, which 
tells us they were pretty wealthy people. “I think we have not checked out 
this part, even… Look—did we?”  “No, not at all. We have not been here yet.” Wa-wa! We’re still discovering 
new parts of this house. “No, we haven’t been in here yet. So 
normally we always check out everything,   just to formulate a story—yeah—but 
we thought we’d checked everything.” It’s like a sort of storage—some spider webs, too. “I’m going to touch something… 
What are you doing here?”  “Oh, it’s a ferret!”
They had a lot of taxidermy animals in here. “Yeah, what kind of bird is that? 
I love the tail—yeah, incredible.” So a lot of clothing and everything of these 
people still left here. The last person to live here was most likely Raichi or Masao, 
but I think it was Raichi. I think Masao already moved long ago to Tokyo, because I found 
some university achievements of his from Tokyo. “Oh, okay—interesting room that we kind of 
forgot—yeah, kind of didn’t even see it.” These are bedrooms, look—most likely.  “All right—yeah—see the tatami mats? Look at the 
vintage built-in TV. What brand is it—Panacolor?” “Panacolor—must be a Panasonic, 
yeah—vintage wood-grain TV.” I’m always saying how I love back in the 
time that we worked furniture and electronics   into functional furniture pieces—that’s what I’m 
trying to say—nowadays just flat-screen black TVs. “Yeah. Metal as well—have you 
seen the metal over here? Oh,   this is something samurai-related—look at that.”
“Don’t know what—uh, it’s a sport—or probably more tradition and culture than a 
sport—but it’s where they use the   wooden katanas to fight each other. It’s 
kind of like Japanese fencing, I’d say.” “Okay—Japanese fencing. This 
probably has a proper name.”  (NdT: si chiama kendō, ma i 
parlanti non lo ricordano.) There’s even more of those lying over here. It 
doesn’t open. There’s some fancy clothing in here—ooh, this was lovely, still came fresh from 
the dry press, never used or worn afterwards. But I don’t understand how many 
rooms this house had for the   amount of people that we found out. 
I think the whole family most likely lived here at some point—it’s not just 
those three people, that’s impossible. Maybe a cool fact we can teach 
people about Japanese bathrooms.  “Oh, right: before you go into the bathroom 
you have these slippers, and they call them…” “Yeah, bathroom slippers—bathroom slippers.” “So you change your—assuming this 
is—oh, this is just a toilet, yeah.” Little windows—why don’t you have this over 
here? Maybe to store soap or something like   that. They just completely forgot an entire 
section of the household. Wow. There’s even a sliding door over here—doesn’t 
open up anymore unfortunately. “Okay—wow—watch out, watch out.”
“I think you’re filming something nice there, right? Sorry.”
“You’re filming something nice   from the back there, right?”
“Oh, I’m sorry.” Bros of DK merch! Check it 
out—link is in the description.  “Hey—best way to support the channel.”
“Absolutely.” “Was this one of your favourite 
rooms in the house, maybe?”  “Yes, but also—well—upstairs is a room I even 
like more, but this has way more things going on. The other one is a bit empty, but 
I think this is the main family room.” “Oh, let’s look at this picture first. 
I think this is Mr Raichi over here with Masao underneath it. Here’s Raichi, his 
wife Kiyoko—or maybe even a grandchild, right? Possibly, because he looks incredibly old.”
“Oh, maybe that’s Masao on the left over there.”  “Oh yes—yes, you’re right—Masao, 
and Masao and Kiyoko, Masao, Kiyoko his wife, Masao his wife, and 
then the two children, possibly.” Oh, an aerial picture of the house—look! 
Yeah, so we were just in this section; this is the doctor’s office over here, this is the 
main house, this is the out-building. We haven’t checked out this part yet, or this part either.
“No, but we might not even be able to, because it’s completely overgrown 
and quite difficult to get to.” So that must be Kiyoko—she passed 
away in the 1990s—probably a small memorial for her held over here. And 
underneath here—watch out for Kiyoko, don’t knock over Kiyoko.
“Oh, you already heard it—yeah.” Perfectly preserved Yamaha 
piano—still the cleaning cloth.  “Oh yeah, or I think you put it 
on the keys when you close this.” “Oh yeah, I’m not sure though—yeah, it’s most 
likely for protecting the keys like that—oh yeah, it’s perfectly sized.”
“Can I press one button?”  “Definitely—Is it still in tune?”
“Yeah, it’s really nice.” How is all this incredibly expensive furniture 
still left in a place like this? It’s in such great condition. Exploring in Japan is 
so different from exploring in Europe:   things get preserved here so well. Another one of those philosophical phrases—I 
don’t know if this counts as a shō or if you have to have shō in vertical, I have no idea. 
It’s most likely handmade; it’s not a print. No. The shodō is those Japanese drawings 
with ink—no, like characters, the shodō characters. Then the whole backside here, 
filled with hundreds and hundreds of books. “Oh, is this part of a Go set?”  “Oh, no, this is a counting window.”
“Oh, right—wow—very interesting.” “Oh, I wanted to go up here. Hey, 
that’s Raichi! That must be Raichi.” “Yeah, the man of the house. I think 
they’re also, like, great-grandfathers—or, yeah, ancient family—hanging here 
on the wall, earlier generation.” “And of course: Godzilla! Godzilla—what’s 
Japan without Godzilla? So, so cool; such an iconic character. But I also love the 
piece behind it that they made for themselves.”  “Yeah, this is Kyoko and Raichi 
together—the two loved ones, the owners and patriarchs of this house. 
And another ikebana display with flowers in there—typical. We see it in every single house: 
if you look at the Japanese videos we’ve made, the houses are filled with these sort of 
flowers that you can put and they stay forever.” What you normally don’t see in Japanese houses 
is sofas. No. And in these “richer” houses you always have sofas and other different styles of 
Western furniture that you don’t see in “poorer” Japanese houses. It’s quite a strange place 
to put them, but okay. A whole cabinet filled with all these little knick-knacks from the 
children—things that they got from travels.  “Hey, they probably went to Paris as well. Me 
and Luke were debating the other day what the most-visited thing in the world was, 
and we think it’s the Eiffel Tower.”  “Yeah.”  Another display case of a 
traditional woman with a kimono on. I love this room—must have been so nice for the 
family. Oh, you could even open everything to the outside; I think in the summer they would 
open everything and then the house would be   completely open and lively with lots of light.
“And I do want to point out this lamp. I mean, it’s interesting. It’s not a very high-quality 
piece, but it’s interesting indeed.” “Okay—yeah, let’s continue.”
“Cool—first room, right? Or   first room— we’re already halfway in the 
video. Yeah. But I love this section as well. Like Luke was saying before: the 
sliders still work kind of perfectly.” This is a very small room—feels like a place to 
centre yourself and pray. Sort of a prayer room. We have a Shinto-Buddhist shrine here where you 
would pray to the deceased people—was that right? “I don’t—are those offerings? Those 
look like grapes or something.” “Yeah, small offerings of what the people really 
loved in their life, and then they could take   it to the afterlife. Beautiful piece again.”
“To have a dedicated room just for this—wow, that’s quite special for a Japanese 
house. And then, of course, also a nice illustration of the world. And I centre it, of 
course, on Japan; we always do it on Europe. That sounds a bit weird to me because I’m so used 
to seeing Europe as the centre of the world.” “I have no idea what this little 
window is—can you look inside?” “What’s in it? Nothing? Okay—maybe 
an old ventilation shaft, possibly.” “And then, of course, a wonderful light 
again—beautiful fluorescent lighting.”  “Oh, I love that—that’s my favourite lighting.” “Watch out!”
“Luke is so tall.”  “Oh, right—lower—nice call-out. 
Can I go underneath it?” “No.”
“Oh, you can—I can scrape my head a bit.” “Hey, I heard some people on the street, but I 
think this is the entrance hall over here—yeah, for the living part. If you come over 
here, look—come, see. This is where they came into the house. This is one of the biggest 
entrance halls I’ve seen in a Japanese place.” “Wow. Oh, wait—this one looks kind of cool. Hey, 
that’s a shoe spoon—yeah, but with a horse on it.” “Oh, all the slippers and 
everything—so many slippers,   though, standing here in the cabinet. 
Wow. The shoes to go outside with.” “And this side entrance here—yeah, like, 
okay, first focus on the main thing:   oh yeah, with the sliding doors going into 
the main house with, again, one of those philosophical phrases above there. Everywhere in 
the house you were reminded of where you were.” “And then here on the side entrance 
there are a couple more sneakers; they look like they’re from younger people.”
“No, I mean, Raichi could have also worn those.” “Oh, look—his cane! His walking cane is 
still here—bamboo walking cane, really nice.” “I think the reason this house has stayed so good 
is because even the floors are made out of stone, and that’s not often the case in Japan. 
It’s not like the traditional minka with wooden floors and tatami mats everywhere.”
“Yeah, but would you still consider this a minka? Minka is the word for Japanese traditional house.”
“Oh, I don’t know—maybe someone in the comments knows more than we do. Personally I would not 
consider this a minka; it definitely has traits of a minka—lots of sliding doors, wooden ceilings, 
and of course the tatami mats in the rooms.” “I always feel very disrespectful 
walking on it with my shoes on.”  “Yeah, but we’re not going to walk with 
our shoes off in abandoned places.” This is a very messy room. I feel like this is one 
of the kids’ rooms, because over here there’s also an award for Go—the Chinese board game again.
“Okay, we really gotta play it sometime. I’m already struggling with chess, so I think I’ll 
stick to chess—chess is already pretty difficult, but Go has so many more positions than chess.”
“That’s true. I do want to see what’s in these drawers, though.”
“Yeah, they’re still filled   with clothing—jackets, everything.”
“Oh, this is not a Japanese piece, sliced really badly—television stuff.”
“Yeah, you could be right—like children’s room, a little prayer room for them. Cabinet 
still with some small books in there.” “What’s this? Oh, this looks like a 
French clock—a fancy Seiko clock.”  “Seiko is Japanese.”
“Yeah, I don’t know if it’s fancy.” “Yeah, I think it looks a 
little bit kitsch to me.” Also the baseball cards—yeah, really big sport in 
Japan. There are a lot of bars where you can just go and watch baseball here, like an American 
sports bar but very high-service; they serve the best sake we ever got, in a baseball bar 
over here. It was great—that was a great time. “Oh, I also saw—I was researching these over 
here. I don’t want to show them too much in depth, so I think we should blur them—but all 
of these are memorial cards toward Kyoko. It also says here that she died in the ’90s 
and that she had a lot of medical problems.   Even companies who worked with Raichi sent 
memorial cards to the family to express their grief—exactly—to the family. Everybody sent 
memorial cards, not just family members.” And then, yeah, a couple more. 
The other part is a bit messy,   but again these big ink characters—wow, awesome. 
Much more than that, there is not to show in that. “Oh, oh, oh—a lot of clothing, a lot 
of clothing down there, I think.” “Yeah, let me just have a look—oh yeah,   all the dresses are in here—that’s 
most likely all from Kyoko.” “Wow, they are beautiful—pretty high quality, 
and also wrapped from the dry cleaner.” “Wow, what a place.” [Music]
“Oh—oh, tricky part: checking out the wooden beams.”
“Oh, right—yeah, I was seeing, like, over here you   can even see the—yeah, I don’t know—the character 
of the wood, I would say wood grain. You could say what kind of wood it is; I’m not entirely sure, 
but it’s very high quality if it lasts this long.” They had bathrooms on every section of the house 
as well. We already saw three different—no, four different—bathrooms at this 
point. We haven’t shown them all,   but there’s one in the doctor’s office, 
there was one in the other bedrooms, there was one—there’s everywhere—there 
are bathrooms in this place.  “Yeah, which is quite convenient 
with such a big place.” “Exactly. I mean, you could live in this 
house without encountering anybody.” There’s something satisfying 
about sliding open these doors.  “Yeah.” “Alright, Luke?”
“Yes?”  “Thank you—after you. Hey, if you want to turn 
around, would you change your shoes again, or would you keep your shoes on in 
the kitchen? Because there are a lot   of slippers over here. Maybe they had 
different slippers for the kitchen.” “That’s a tough call—maybe 
they also had food slippers,   kitchen slippers. It’s quite a chore 
to constantly change your shoes.” This is an interesting Japanese kitchen—yeah, 
seems a lot like a ’70s American kitchen to me, looking at the metal cupboards and everything.
“Oh, yeah—this is something that you see in retro America that we filmed a lot while we were 
filming abandoned houses in the United States.” “I think this part is the most decayed, right?”  “Oh, yeah—this was pretty bad.”
“Yeah, it’s hard to say—oh no, look at this beautiful wooden piece that’s also 
just rotting away, detaching from the wall; there is nothing inside there anymore. 
Unfortunately it’s completely falling apart.” But yeah, look at the number of tables that we 
have in this kitchen—there’s a lot of table space, so I think the family was quite large at one 
point that lived in here. They would look at their mini CRT TV—Panasonic, of course.
“Wow, feels so retro-futuristic.” “Yeah, I can still see them sitting here eating 
and watching the TV—oh, it’s so awesome.” But for some reason this cabinet still looks in 
great condition with all of its cups and glasses and everything still perfectly in there—love it.
“Does this still slide properly? Wow—lot of noise, bit of squeak.”
“Have we already explained   what these things in here are?”
“No, I don’t think so. Sake bottle—it looks like a sake bottle.”
“Yeah—oh, yeah, there are also the sake cups.” Sake cups—so sake is a Japanese rice wine.
“It’s lovely—and it doesn’t give you a headache in the morning; that’s, 
I think, the best part about it.”  “Yeah, and you can drink it cold, room 
temperature, and warm—it’s all great.” “But it’s dangerous.”
“But it’s dangerous,   yeah—dangerous in the sense that you 
don’t feel you get yourself drunk.” “I think these are teacups over here.”
“Yeah. Then we also have rice plates and everything for all the different side dishes 
that they would eat—ramen bowls, maybe?” “Yeah, a little bit bigger bowls 
are, in a lot of cases, ramen bowls.” “All still neatly stacked in this 
cabinet—I’m going to close it up.”  “Yes.” “Do you want to have a quick 
peek at the glassware, too, or—?” “No, it’s just glass—nothing that special.”
“No—wow. But this is also a teapot, right?” “Yeah, that’s a teapot.”
“Okay.” Clunk—that sounded horrible,   but what an awesome kitchen this is.
“Yeah, I can see myself cooking here.” “And here—oh yeah, this is also 
something I want to point out:   there’s still wash drying here—yeah, like for 
twenty years now. Spider webs already around it.” “I don’t know what this room 
is that we’re standing in now.”  “No—maybe just to check out your outfit. 
I mean, that robe does look good.” “Okay, let’s go.”
“Oh, is there another bathroom here?”  “Yeah, there’s another bathroom.”
“Yeah, go—I’m just going to have a quick peek. It’s not that interesting, but 
what I do like is that if you were sitting   in this bath you could open those windows and 
enjoy that beautiful view from outside. And for some reason there’s also a window here, 
but this is a one-way mirror window—look.” “Nah.”
“Oh no,   I can see you—yeah, that’s… 
not—yeah, it’s pretty weird.” “Yeah, but I also wanted to 
show you the outside of the   house—we’re just going to give a quick peek.” “Oh, they did have a wonderful backyard in this   place—this would be a nice patio 
to have, like, a nice dinner.” “Yeah, but I think it was more used 
as sort of a working space, maybe.” “Yeah, but, I mean, these also look 
like benches you could fold out, maybe.”  “Exactly—it looks like a really chill spot. These 
trees have been growing in here for ages and ages; they are literally going through the ceiling.”
“Want to have a quick look?” “We do have to be a bit quiet, though.”
“Yeah.” “This must have been a great backyard 
back in the time—perfectly cared for.” “Wow—it’s completely overgrown at this point.”
“Want to show the garage as well?” “Sure—yeah.” Bump—“Oh, I bump my head into everything 
in this country; it’s not made for—look.” “Oh, yeah—washing basins, all the supplies, 
another washing machine—this is already the second one we’re seeing. They have a 
lot of washing machines in this place.”  “Hey, when is this calendar from?”
“Uh, a lot of Japanese writing on there—I cannot really make out anything, but—oh, 2006.”
“Oh, that’s one year later than we have found so far.”
“Yeah—oh, interesting.” And yes, you can see they were quite wealthy 
people: they had a two-bay garage over here where their cars would be stored. These are 
gone—normally we see a lot of cars left behind in Japan, but not in here; they did take those cars.
Little crafting station or very small repairs to the house could have been made—tools here I cannot 
see, but you might—probably gardening tools. “Yeah.”
“Okay—back to   the house.”
“Yes.” This is not the end yet, everybody—there are 
still two more levels to this house. Okay, even the upper levels of this 
house still feel great to us.  “Yeah.”
“Oh, yeah—here are the bedrooms. The Japanese bedroom 
is completely different from a European bedroom.” This is one of my favourite rooms: it’s empty, 
which is unfortunate, but—I like this room. “But I think these rooms would always be empty.”
“Look.”  “Yeah—might be. Or, well, it’s empty except for 
a piano there. A beautiful piano—another Yamaha.” “Oh—oh wow, what a piece! So well preserved—no 
mould on there, just a little tad bit of mould. You could still play a full piece on this one. I 
just want to—can I? Yeah—I’m not going to play it, I just want to hear a chord on this thing.”
♪ [one chord] ♪ “Wow—congratulations! Such a beautiful chord.”
“I mean, that sounded great to me. One day I will also learn this—one day, one day.” They would take out their futon mats and lay 
them out here in the evening for sleeping. “What’s this—what is this? Best collection 
of movie—maybe… oh, movie themes.” “Oh, this is for record players, and 
they were probably stacked as well.”  “Yeah, they’re vertically stacked. Yesterday we 
encountered a place where the records were all stacked on top of each other, and Luke explained 
to me that if you stack records on top of each   other they break; if you do it horizontally 
they don’t break, but they lose their value.” “And the lamp—hey, it’s pretty 
similar to the one downstairs.”  “Yeah, probably a set they 
bought. Wait—no, this is plastic.” “Plastic? That’s horrible! If this were 
wood and proper glass, I would love this.” They do some techy things—for example 
this suspended ceiling over here. “You don’t know the word for it, but that’s the 
Dutch installation for it. And then here—oh, yeah—look at this ribbon around his 
head. Oh my god! Is this maybe his   doctor’s outfit? I don’t know—it’s awesome. 
Could have been his doctor’s outfit. Wow.” But you’re not done yet here.  “I love this walkway through here as well.”
“Yeah, and this is my favourite—uh, oh, I forgot the word.”
“That’s no problem—those   Japanese walkways: engawa. This is my 
favourite engawa—like this detailing, metal detailing—quite beautiful. Then walkway, 
and it had a little terrace over on that side.” “This one is a bit more 
difficult—yeah, seems aged.” “Okay—welcome inside another bedroom—a 
smaller one. Feels a bit more cozy, and there’s a lot more stuff left in this one.” One of those phrases again 
up there—beautifully made. “Hey, I think this is a dress-up for a kimono.”
“Oh, yeah—this could go underneath. Kimono is a traditional Japanese outfit for a woman; they 
have a very particular way of putting it on. This is the full set for the outfit—I 
think this would go around the waist.” Futons still in there. Little display case. “This—one of these was a kimono.”
“Oh, yeah, this is a kimono—right.” “This looks more like a Western doll.”
“Oh, yeah—it also says ‘Made in Italy’ on there—oh, this is probably 
something traditional Italian.” We have seen this several times—this 
bear with a salmon in his mouth; it’s usually carved in wood. It’s probably 
something symbolic, but they’re everywhere. There’s another bear over here—look at him, 
also with his fish, probably hand-carved. I believe this award is the award that Raichi 
got when he was 88 years old. That’s a very symbolic age in Japan, and the town hall 
gives you this award saying “Congratulations for reaching that age and thank you for 
the contributions to society you made.”   There’s also the 88-temple pilgrim route, so 
88 seems to be a very special number in Japan. It’s also unique to have a display part on the 
floor—yes, but I like it. Couple of different phrases here on the wall, and this 
one as well—maybe a temple he visited; maybe pilgrimage is something 
done by a lot of Japanese people. Bit messy over here, but I 
love the table—and I mean it.  “I think this opens up even—no, it doesn’t.”
“No—wow.” Wonderful room.
“Look—yeah—this is the   way to go to the last floor of the place, and 
I was quite curious what was written up here. It’s an old Chinese-style character set that’s 
not commonly used in everyday language anymore; native speakers also cannot read this, but it 
says over here that it’s virtue and humility, learning and wisdom, respect for 
tradition—nice symbolic text.” For us Westerners it’s pretty unusual to have 
a decorative alphabet, but it looks very pretty and intricate. I mean, we have Latin, and 
Latin is also decorative nowadays, I guess. “I love these scissor doors—they’re 
really cool. Here it feels like we’re really going into a very, 
very old part of the house.”  “Oh—are you okay?”
“I am, okay.” “Oh, yeah—oh, yeah—I should show 
this part first. Come in here.” “All right—hundreds and hundreds of books are 
stored in here; this is like an ancient library.” “Wow—I really, really like this. I can probably 
not read a single book that is in here, but—no.” “I did see some Western books, though—one or two.”
“Oh, yeah—let me see if I can find one book that is in English. Wait—I know—go a bit further to the 
left, like those green books, I believe—this one?” “Uh, this—oh, yeah—yeah, same—oh, I don’t know 
which language this is in—no, I don’t remember.” “Oh, this is actually written in Japanese but 
the cover is in German—it’s a recipe book, a cooking book—probably they 
made some German sausage here.”  “Oh, here—‘English Speech and 
Spelling’—oh, so they definitely were learning some English as well.”
“Yeah, like one book—not that much.” But the amount of books here—like, 
I need a wider-angle lens; Justin, they’re already pretty wide—try to convey this. There are also these presents over here—we 
see these a lot as well. These little boxes store little presents in them; handcrafted, 
most likely. You would give them whenever you go to a wedding or to a birthday or 
something like that. And more here as   well—you can see they just stored them 
up here; they’re like, “Another one.” And then these sliding doors as well—what was the   specific name for this?
“Um, yes—I forgot.” “Okay—they have three types of these 
sliding doors—extremely fragile.”  “Yeah, extremely fragile—it’s 
been eaten away a bit.” This is the last room—feels like a very, very 
old room in this house. Wow. There are more honourable certificates up there on the cabinet.
“This one you translated, right, or was it—?” “No, I did not translate this.”
“Which one was the one from Go?”  “That was the award.”
“Oh, that was the award—yes, yes, yes.” There are probably more awards. Raichi also got 
awards for being an elementary-school teacher, so he taught medical stuff to the children. He was 
also part of the Red Cross; he was also part of the local medical community—exactly. In these 
smaller rural parts you’re not just a doctor, you have several roles in the community. 
He was a man of everything and highly honoured in this community. That’s 
quite the place we are in today. “Oh, can you close that door, maybe, 
just to feel how this room looks?” “Oh, you’re over—no, you’re overshooting 
it—it’s okay, it’s difficult.” “I just want to know how 
this room feels with those—”  “It’s impossible—okay, okay, okay.”
“Yeah—oh, really cool how that slides.” This is how you would sleep 
in here back in the time.  “What are these books? Sorry, I’m still sliding doors—oh, sorry—sorry.”
“Yes, this is basically how it feels when it’s all closed—wow, it’s so nice. If you were 
having a little fight in here as siblings and then throw yourself through those papers, 
I think your father would be extremely mad.” “But have you seen these books? They 
seem like the same style of writing—look,   the upper one looks like Hangman.” “Yeah, I want to check out one of these—oh, 
they look ancient; they even smell ancient.” “Maybe encyclopedias?”
“Maybe.” “Wow—it even has illustrations and 
everything in there—no, not that much,   I just happened to open it.”
“It’s twelve o’clock—there’s our local tune again.”
“Yeah, it’s twelve o’clock.   As we stated earlier, certain regions 
have particular tunes or jingles and they play at twelve and at six—maybe 
it’s to go for lunch or something.” “Hey, look, this even has gold 
plating on it—oh, wow—awesome.” “Put this back.” That jingle in the background 
is awesome. Another wonderful cabinet—looks completely handmade as well.  “This is probably like—oh, for showcasing 
stuff for—huh, I really don’t know.” “I really like this one down here as well—yeah, 
it has a part where it completely looks like   a wooden tree trunk, and the other side looks 
like a cabinet—must have taken hours to craft.” And even more certificates up here and scrolls.  “Oh, this is his medical certificate—yeah. 
As you can see, there are many, many more lying here; they acquired them over the years.”
“Oh, yeah—this was such an accomplished person.” “What’s in here—oh—oh, there’s 
a complete shrine behind—there’s a complete shrine behind here! Look 
at that—oh wow, no way. I just keep finding stuff in this house—this is 
a house that has so much history.” “Look, I think this house was one 
of the best we did so far in Japan.” “Yeah, and the Japan series has been 
absolutely wonderful up to this point;   I can only be grateful for the things that we 
are able to show you from Japanese culture.” “We hope we explained it right—Luke does 
his best with all the translations and   everything he finds.”
“And you do too.” “Yeah, I try my best as well. Thank 
you so much for being here with us and enjoying these Japanese homes and this 
part of culture that we want to show you. We’ll see you next week in another amazing 
episode from Japan—or somewhere else around   the world—and we thank you very, very 
much for being here with us. Bye-bye.”

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STORY

When we first drove past this weather-worn farmhouse in rural Japan, it looked like any other abandoned home… until the front doors slid open. Inside we found the perfectly preserved world of Dr. Yuda: physician, humanitarian, and pillar of the community. From neatly lined surgical scalpels to jars of century-old compounds and a framed Japanese Medical Ethics charter, every corner whispers of a lifetime spent healing others.

What makes this exploration unmissable?

A clinic frozen in time. Two sterilizers, handwritten patient charts, and even the doctor’s own Go certificate, all left exactly where they were two decades ago.

Decades of honors. From a 1972 PTA award to the Japanese Red Cross Silver Medal and a mayoral commendation, Dr. Yuda’s accolades still decorate the walls.

A family’s silent farewell. After the doctor’s passing, his wife Kiyoko remained until around 2005. Her calendars, condolence letters, and mobility aids reveal the quiet final chapter of a devoted couple who simply vanished from public memory.

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