Takayama and the Japanese Alps

Last weekend, I visited H's hometown of Takayama, a small town located near the Japanese Alps. This trip had been "planned" since the first week I arrived, however, due to unforseen circumstances, our "plan" was very much in limbo up to the night before we left. The trip started off as being a 7 hour drive according to "the driver" but we were convinced it would take much longer than that, as the train took 5 hours and as you've heard, the train here is VERY fast. Indeed, the trip was a little over 10 hours. Not entirely due to the distance--we were stuck in traffic for about 2 hours all because of rubbernecking! I hate rubberneckers. Why can't you just ignore the traffic accident on the other side of the highway? I mean, I too am curious as to what happened, but I don't slow down to 10 mph to look at it. To keep ourselves distracted, H made us try to read license plates. I know very little Japanese, though I have learned pretty much all of the alphabet of katakana and hiragana (which are almost useless unless you know the Chinese character--kanji--as well). We tried our best, and as before, M (who recognizes a few kanji) and I combined, were able to guess a few. We also made "friends" on the rode--cars that we had seen on and off during our trip--and would say "hey, there's our friend" to keep ourselves distracted. Below is a picture of one of our friends--a truck with the image of Momotaro (AKA Peach Boy, a boy born out of a peach who one day takes off to fight a three-eyed monster and on the way befriends a dog, a monkey and a bird--yeah, its weird).

Anyway, so we made it to Takayama around 11pm on Friday night. Since we had only decided to go the night before, we had booked one of the few available rooms, which H described as a double room, so M and I had no problem sharing. Except apparently H had said "semi-double", though I don't recall ever hearing the word "semi". The bed was slightly larger than a twin bed, so M and I were PRETTY cozy for two nights.

The following morning, we got up early and hit downtown. Downtown, which you can walk across in 20 minutes. It was very nice. Typical small town in the mountains, I guess. It had 2 morning markets where people can buy mountain vegetables in the spring (one of the things Takayama is known for). We went to the "old town" where they have traditional Japanese houses still standing. They are now all small shops on one very long street that sell all sorts of souvenirs. I can't imagine what this place is like in the winter with lots of snow as all of the rodes are very small and all of the places are shops--how do people survive without tourists? Oh wait, its the Japanese Alps--they must have tourists year-round.

The rest of the morning, we walked around the markets some more and H's parents invited us for lunch. We dined in a very nice Japanese-style restaurant in a private tatami mat room and had mountain vegetables for lunch. Since H's parents don't speak English and have never personally met foreigners before, we had been warned of much picture taking. Which there was, but they were very nice, so it was ok. And they brought along their friend, Mr. M, the middle school principal who used to teach English. I've met one other English teacher in Japan and that person's English was not the greatest, so I was afraid this guy wouldn't be able to communicate much. I was wrong. Although he said he only knew 100 english words, we got along just fine. He was also nice enough to be our tour guide for the rest of the afternoon.

One other thing Takayama is known for is its fall and spring festivals. The festivals are among the more famous ones in Japan. There was a museum that showcases some of the floats used in the festival and they were very beautiful and very big--three stories tall! The original floats would require 80 people to carry it down the street--all of the same height, as it needs to be level to be carried properly. The floats used now are carried by a few people and have wheels (80 volunteers of the same height became too hard to come across). In the same location, there is a display of a miniaturized version of Nikko--a town outside of Tokyo that has many shrines. The display was very cute and both M and I regretted not having enough time to visit the real Nikko.

After the museum, we went to Hida no Seto Village--a small village on a hill that has old village houses, some that have been relocated to this hill showing what it was like back in the day. The houses were pretty cool, with slanted roofs that were made of straw and mud and who knows what else, but were about 2 feet thick. It was a cute little village.

That evening, H and his parents invited us to have Hida beef. Its at the same level as Kobe beef, but its newer so not as popular. Apparently, the cows are treated very special and massaged every day to get even distribution of fat into the meat. The beef was damned tasty. We grilled it ourselves at the center of our table and despite the fat inside the meat, it was delicious. In fact, I hate eating the fatty part of beef, but you couldn't really taste it--or I didn't get the fatty texture because its blended in so much. Anyway, if you get a chance to have Hida beef--go for it.

After dinner, we went to the fancy Green Hotel because of its souvenir shop. Since Takayama is a small town, all the shops close at 8pm, which means the town is practically shut down by that time. We went to the shop because H's parents wanted to get us the other more famous thing Takayama is known for. And that would be Sarubobo or Monkey Baby. This is a doll that has no face and looks like a kid. Its supposed to bring you good luck and there's more to the story, but I don't know it exactly--something about taking away your pain. They come in several different colors representing different things you wish for: red for good everything (mostly good home, good match and easy birth, though now it just represents everything), pink for love, blue for success in work and school, green for health, yellow for money. After purchasing large red sarubobos, we dipped our feet in the hot springs outside the hotel. Hot springs is another thing Takayama is known for, though we didn't have time to take a bath in one.

Moving on, we went back to H's house to meet his brother, sister-in-law, and 2 yr old niece. We were curious about children using firecrackers near the hotel, so H's bro was asked to bring a few over. Ok, a few turned out to be 5 large bags of all sorts of firecrackers. From sparklers to things that shoot out sparks to things that shoot out fireworks. M had never played with fireworks before, so she was very excited, although because of this, she also didn't really know what to do and at one point fireworks were dropped, in an almost accident, then recovered and all was good.

The next day, H took us to Takayama Jinya, an old goverment building during the Tokugawa period in which they display tatami mat rooms where the people would beg for forgiveness and where they would torture people. They also showed other rooms, like where the wife of Tokugawa resided and where her maids lived. It was interesting, though not very photogenic. We then had lunch at a ramen place (btw, ramen noodle shops are the coolest thing ever--ramen are considered full meals here and after one bowl, you'd understand why--H, M and I really want to open up a ramen noodle shop in Boston). Takayama is also known for special soba noodles and ramen. Lunch was really tasty in this small joint where you can see the guy making it up.

After lunch, M and I headed back to Hiroshima via train (only 5 hours). The ride to and from Takayama us supposedly one of the most beautiful as you pass through the Japanese Alps. I took the window seat for what was supposed to be the first part of the trip, as I said I was likely to fall asleep since I was exhausted, but M was determined to stay up and watch the scenery. Well, about 20 minutes into our ride, M was completely out. The train was hot (something must've been wrong with the air conditioner) and M was fast asleep with her hand pulling up part of her shirt--wish I had taken a picture. Anyway, the scenery was very beautiful and at some points, when we passed over a river, you could see fishermen fishing. We finally arrived in Hiroshima close to 7pm, just in time for the lighting of the Peace Memorial lanterns around the A-bomb dome. More to come on Hiroshima later on...