Takayama and Shirakawago

Since we had gotten our tickets to Takayama we figured we had a few extra minutes on Sunday morning to sleep in a little and dilly-dally.  What we did not count on was the fact that we did not finish packing Saturday night.  Our train was scheduled for 7:45.  We figured if we were out the door by 7:10 we would have time for a quick breakfast after checking out of the hotel.  The hotel made us check out rather than let us keep our stuff there.  It makes sense, this way the room is free if they really need it but the hotel is so big plus it was Sunday night we doubt they needed it.  When we were here six years ago each time we travelled for the weekend they made us check out and each time we got our same room back when we returned.  On this morning, we did not expect to oversleep.  We woke up at about 6:15 which sounds like plenty of time but we still needed to pack and we both needed to shower.  We finally were ready to head upstairs to check out at about 7:15, which meant we were running late.  The checkout process was easy since we were on the concierge floor and we could check out there instead of at the front desk.  As was expected, they sent a tiny young woman to pick up our luggage, all six pieces of it.  She could not lift the suitcases so Chris helped her out, against her wishes.  We finally left the room for good at about 7:25, too late for breakfast in the lounge.  We headed downstairs and found a pastry shop in the train station.  We bought a few pieces of various pastries and headed for our track. 

Today's train

Today's breakfast

When we bought the tickets for the train Saturday night Chris asked for seats 1C & 1D.  The ticket agent, an older gentleman, spoke pretty good English.  We could tell that he was very happy to be serving us and practicing his English.  The last time we took this train the green car was the first car of the train and row 1 was right up front.  This train also had a glass front meaning that row 1 had a front row seat to the action.  The guy told us that seat 1C/1D was unavailable so he started to put us in row 6, which would have been just fine, but then he realized, rather excitedly, that row 1 was wide open in car 2!  So he issued us tickets for seats 1C/1D, just like we asked for but we were in car 2 which meant the only view we would be getting was of the back end of car 1.  We did not want to burst the ticket agent’s bubble when we realized this on Saturday so we took our tickets and thanked him.  We figured the fact that he was able to communicate with us AND give us exactly what he wanted (or so he thought) must have completely made his day, maybe even his week.  Fast forward to Sunday, we approached the train figuring we would have a view of car 1.  We were wrong.  Car 2 did not have a glass front (neither did car 1, as car 1 was at the back of the train) like it did 6 years ago.  In addition, row 1 was no longer the prime seats as you only had half a window with the other half being the wall.  It probably had a little extra leg room, much like the front row of an airplane, which is probably why the ticket agent thought we wanted that seat.  It didn’t matter; we looked out our half window, ate our breakfast, and caught some much needed z’s on the way to Takayama.  The train ride was about 2 ½ hours, slowly climbing out of the valley and up into the mountains.  We dozed on and off for much of the trip, each time we woke up there was more snow on the ground.  By the time we got to Takayama just after 10 there was about a foot of snow and it was still coming down, albeit lightly.

The view from the train about an hour outside of Nagoya

The view from the train an hour later

We kind of rushed off of the train because we had a very heavy backpack containing our most valuable stuff that we didn’t want to leave with at the bell desk overnight, plus it contained our clothes for the next day and some snacks.  We wanted to secure a locker and being that Takayama is a small station and the train was crowded we figured the lockers would go quick.  We were lucky as we got a locker and we were right, as the lockers went fast.  We then walked over to the information center to grab a map of the city.  We got a map in English and another in Spanish (so Chris could practice) and we headed for the bus station, which was right next to the information center.  Takayama was not our final destination this day; instead we were headed to Shirakawa-go, which is high in the mountains.  We were staying in an old style farm house in an area that gets more snow that most people have ever seen but more on this later.  We had the concierge back in Nagoya book us the night in the farm house plus they gave us bus information between Takayama and Shirakawa-go.  Even though the bus was not until 1:50, we wanted to secure a ticket now just in case we were in a rush later.  We intentionally wanted this “layover” in Takayama because we had stayed there for a night six years ago and it was a charming little town. 

The information center just outside the train station

 

Takayama is an old style Japanese town in the mountains that was originally known for its carpenters.  The old town area as it is today took shape in the 16^th century, with wooden buildings and narrow streets.  Today it is a major attraction in Japan. There are also several sake breweries in the town as well. (You know what this means Aunt Theresa!)

Back in Nagoya we had read that Takayama, each week during brewing season, would be offering tours of their sake distilleries, one distillery per week.  This is significant because the rest of the year the distilleries are closed to the public.  At the information booth we had inquired about tours of the sake distilleries and they circled on the map where this week’s distillery was and we headed that way.  The distillery, along with the other attractions in town, was about a 15 minute walk from the station. Our walk probably took 20 minutes because for the most part the sidewalks had not been plowed but they were instead compacted from people walking on them, which made them bumpy sheets of ice.

We walked into the distillery, pretty much not expecting anyone to speak English, let alone give us an English tour, but we were surprised.  There was a tour guide who spoke English and she was more than willing to give us a tour of the small distillery.  Our English speaking tour was kind of intimate; there were just two people on our tour, Jackie and Chris.  The Japanese tours had anywhere from 6-12 people each.  We learned that the process for making sake and the main ingredients in sake are much like bourbon or whiskey, except the grain they use is rice instead of corn or barley.  Another key ingredient is clean, fresh water.  Being that Takayama sits up in the mountains, there is an abundance of clean water.  This is why there were at one time 62 sake distilleries in town.  Today there are 6 left.  Our tour lasted only about 10 minutes, as the distillery was tiny.  The Japanese language tours were about the same time so we didn’t get ripped off (the tour was free anyway).  At the end of the tour they gave us a free sample but insisted that we not keep the glass.  We thought it was strange at first, maybe foreigners often take the glasses (like we often can at home at wineries, etc.), but we then learned that by counting the empty glasses at the end of the day, they know how many tours they have given.  After learning that this particular sake could only be bought at this particular distillery, we bought a small bottle to give to one of the men at the concierge desk who had helped us with our travel plans.  We asked if they also sold Umeshu because we like that quite a bit.  They did not but they pointed us to a distillery on our map that did have it.  We thanked them quite a bit, exchanged bows and headed to the other distillery.

Outside the distilery.  We later learned that sake distilleries have those giant cedar balls hanging out front

Sake fermenting

The well where the fresh water comes from

By this time the narrow streets of Takayama were pretty crowded with weekend tourists, much like us.  We found the other distillery, went inside and watched as the people behind the counter scrambled to look busy as to not have to talk to the English speakers.  We have found this to be a common occurrence when we get into the more rural parts of Japan.  We waited, patiently browsing through the gift shop, until some Japanese people approached the counter asking for samples.  We jumped right in and asked for Umeshu.  They were happy with our one word question because Umeshu in Japanese is still Umeshu. They smiled and poured us a cup.  We enjoyed it very much and bought two bottles to take home, and then we bought a third when we realized we would probably drink a bottle before leaving Japan. 

 

Brewery where the umeshu was to be had

We then walked around town a little more before stumbling upon an outdoor market which we remembered ran either every Sunday or every weekend.  We walked up the street exploring the stalls and we tried some Hida beef on a stick (Hida beef is a type of beef local to this area) and we shopped a little bit.  We had two names on our list we hadn’t bought souvenirs for yet so we got something two of them could share.  Yup, we bought some kind of homemade Japanese cat toy which they will share.  We also saw tons of sarubobo dolls, which are dolls associated with the town of Takayama.  These dolls are usually red human shaped dolls, with no facial features made in a variety of sizes.  We have read of several different meanings for these dolls, with the most common being good luck.  These things are EVERYWHERE in Takayama.  They even have them with faces and in different colors. 

View along the way

Sarubobo dolls for sale

We walked a little more and saw the ryokan (traditional Japanese bed & breakfast) we stayed at 6 years ago.  We walked down some of the narrow alley-like streets, just looking around and taking it all in.  At one point we were walking down a narrow alley and we saw tire tracks from a car in the snow.  This is normally not significant at all but what made this interesting is that as Chris stood in the alley and stretched out his arms he was only about a foot from touching each wall.  And they drove a car through there somehow and the alley wasn’t even completely straight! 

The place we stayed six years ago is the middle building across the river

The place we stayed on the left

Looks closely and see the tire tracks.  We could just about touch both walls at the same time when standing there.

We were looking for a place to eat.  We had a certain food in mind, Hoba miso, which is also unique to this area.  Hoba miso is local miso cooked with onion and green bell pepper over a hoba leaf on a small hibachi grill.  They usually add a couple of pieces of hida beef as well and you cook it right there at your table.  It sounds simple but the taste is amazing.  We figured we would just walk around and find a place selling it but being that it was Sunday many places seemed to be closed.  Then we remembered the map they had given us at the information booth had a few places on it.  The first was a restaurant that had just this type of meal so we headed for that.  We walked in and were happy to see we were the only diners but we think it was because it was Sunday and it was off the beaten path.  The owner greeted us and handed us some picture menus and an English menu which we didn’t need because we knew what we wanted.  We also ordered Umeshu and a local beer.  The beer had a sarubobo doll and a mountain range, definitely appropriate for the area.  We enjoyed our awesome meal, paid and walked outside to take a couple of pictures of the restaurant.  The owner must have been interested in us, watching us from inside, because after a minute or two he came running out with a large paper bag for us to put all of our smaller bags into.  He was very excited to offer this to us and we were excited that he was excited.  We exchanged bows, with him bowing many more times than us, and we were on our way once again. 

The restaurant where we ate lunch

We made our way back to the train station, first stopping at the post office for the ATM, then at a couple of stores, before getting our bags out of the locker and boarding the bus.

The bus to Shirakawa-go was a typically highway bus and it went pretty much through the mountains for a little over an hour.  By through the mountains, we really mean it.  The Japanese, as far as we can tell, seem to like drilling tunnels through mountains rather than over mountains.  We can only guess that the terrain over the mountains is extremely tough and the weather conditions would probably close the roads a good portion of the year.  Once we got outside of the town and onto the highway we counted 15 tunnels we passed through ranging in length from just a couple of hundred meters to the biggest one being a little over 10KM long.  We estimated that once on the highway we were in tunnels about 80% of the time. 

Our bus

View from the front of the bus

Saw this interesting sign, we think it means it is snowing up ahead.

When we arrived at Shirakawa-go, there was snow everywhere.  The concierge told us not to bring rolling luggage, to instead use a backpack, the piles of snow everywhere was the reason.  There were also people everywhere.  This is the main reason we decided to stay overnight, to get a chance to see the place after most of the tourists had gone home.  We were immediately impressed by some of the buildings, mostly seemingly made of wood with almost straw roofs.  The roofs of the houses are extremely steep, making an A-shape.  The shape and steepness is to keep the heavy snow from building up on the roof.

We did not exactly have directions to the house we were staying in; we only knew it was a 5 minute walk from the bus station.  We grabbed a map from the information center which was located right near the bus stop, found our house on the map (all houses have names) and started walking. In less than 5 minutes we got to about where we thought the house should be.  The problem was the streets are so narrow you can’t really differentiate a street from an alleyway from a footpath.  We knew our house was on the third corner but we didn’t know if the map only labeled streets or if they labeled every kind of passageway.  As it turns out we walked past our house, twice.  Only some of the houses had names in English, ours did not.  So we found it by comparing the Japanese lettering on the printout the concierge had given us to the lettering on the sign outside of the house.

Our home for the night

We rang the doorbell and were immediately greeted by an older woman who spoke as much English as we spoke Japanese, maybe even less.  She was happy to see us though.  We immediately took off our shoes in the entryway and put on slippers, which is tradition in Japan.  She led us to our room where we took off our slippers.  It is also tradition to not where slippers on the tatami mat in a home of this type.  The slippers stay out in the hallway and each time you leave the room you put your slippers on.  The only other time you remove your slippers is when you enter the bathroom. There are special slippers that you use in the bathroom.  Those stay in the bathroom and your other slippers never enter the bathroom.  The last time we stayed at a ryokan we screwed up (at least Chris did) and entered the bathroom with his house slippers on.  The lady almost had a heart attack when we did this.  We made sure we did not make that mistake again.  Back in our room, the lady immediately sat us down at a small table in the center of the room.  There are no chairs so you sit on the floor.  She brought us tea and she explained that dinner would be at 6, breakfast at 7:30, she showed us the shower which we would share with other guests, and she showed us the bathroom which was also shared.  We thanked her and she left us alone.

Slippers by the entrance.  One size fits all.

Bathroom slippers.

After our tea we walked back to the entryway, put our boots back on and went outside to check out the village.  By now it was about 3 PM and most of the tourists were starting to leave for the day.  Most of the houses around the village are actual homes or ryokan but a few are open to the public as museums where you can see what a typical house might look like.  One such house was called the Wada House which is an especially large house.  We were able to explore the house (in slippers of course).  In the center of the house on the ground floor is a fire pit which was kept burning all day to warm the house and to strengthen the house with the smoke and soot.  Above the fire was a “hiama” to extinguish flying sparks and embers.  The second floor, up a very steep flight of stairs, was used for cultivating silkworms.  The wooden supports were all bound together using no nails; instead they were tied together using rope and thick straw.

After leaving the Wada House we walked around the village a little more checking out the houses and some of the shops.  We bought some “street food” from a guy selling food.  It was kind of like a stuffed hash brown, stuffed with potato and a small amount of beef.  A vending machine also caught our eye because one of the drinks was a mystery drink.  We ended up buying a mystery drink which was some kind of fruit punch.  We then walked back to our house to get ready for dinner.

We aren't sure what this says...something "river"

Vending machines in Japan sell hot and cold drinks denoted by the red or blue under the product.  Notice the mystery drink botom 4th from right.

Mystery drink unveiled

Dinner was served in a common room.  There were 8 other people staying that night, two couples and a family.  The only other people who spoke any English were the children from the family but we didn’t know this until later in the evening after we left dinner when we heard them practicing with each other.  Dinner was served in a style like our tea: on the floor sitting on our knees.  After about 15 minutes of this our legs were both asleep.  After a half hour it was pure pain.  After an hour Chris thought for sure he was going to die.  The food would be best characterized as traditional Japanese: a whole fish, we are assuming some kind of freshwater fish perhaps caught in the river outside the village, a bowl of rice, some pickled vegetables, some local beef cooking with miso paste like we had in Takayama, some tempura, tofu, a radish salad, and some other stuff.  Everything was good.  It was difficult to get past the look of the fish but once you started eating it, it tasted like fish.

After dinner we headed back to our room where our bed was now waiting for us.  While we ate they brought out a futon type mattress and some blankets and put them in a corner for us.  They also moved our table to the side of the room.  We set up our beds and then went outside hoping for some good pictures of the houses at night, as we had seen many pictures of the houses at night and we wanted to see them for ourselves.  Unfortunately most houses were not lit up as we had expected and on top of that everything was covered with black ice and it was quite cold outside, so we did not stay out very long.  We headed back to our room and prepared for our shower.  Now when we checked in the lady showed us the shower but we were only half paying attention.  Now that it was time to shower we were not sure which door was the shower.  There were three doors, two with Japanese writing on them and the third with no writing.  The door with no writing seemed to go to the kitchen and we guessed that the third one was also private based on people’s boots just outside of it.  So we went for door #2 and we were right, it was a shower.  We immediately realized there was a problem: no towels.  Apparently we should have brought our own.  Since we had not brought our own towel we were forced to use a washcloth as a towel.  We were not exactly dry when we put our clothes on.  The ryokan did supply us with a kimono and another bathrobe type piece of clothing to wear on top of the kimono but they don’t seem to make this clothing in any size besides tiny Japanese person size.  We had sleeping clothes so this was not a problem, but we did have to get dressed half wet.  We went back to our room after the shower and started getting ready for bed and by 9:30 we were pretty much asleep.

Our "towel".  You can see how small it is based on the brush that sits on top of it.

Our bed for the night.