Takayamaoan

November 23, 2009 – Part Two



So after our wonderful tour of Shirakawa-go and the amazing buildings there we headed off to Hida Takayama "Home of the Japanese Spirit." It a wonderful city with both old world charm and new world sophistication. There are old private wooden homes at the center of the city – some of them 400 hundred years old. Many of them have very old wisteria vines, which I am sure are beautiful when in full bloom.

The city itself has ...

... br>
So we drove another hour or so and arrived at an area called, Shirakawa-go, specifically Ogimachi Village, a very old town in central Japan. More than 600 people live in this village. They have preserved rice fields, and houses that withstand the heavy snow called, gassho style houses. Gassho style houses have a large, steep, thatch roof that resembles hands folded in prayer, thus the name “gassho” which to means to pray ...

... when cooked a unique melty experience. Yes i am raving but i'm serious, it was that good and if anything, i've never tasted anything like it. Go gastro-tourism!

The next day was our day of hardcore sightseeing which included going to see the traditional folk village which has reconstructions of various traditional houses, and examples of traditional art such as exceptional woodcutting, in a beautiful country setting. Also on the list were: the old style ...

... me laver quand meme.

Demain nous partons pour Hyroshima. Nous aurons plusieurs heures de train a faire. Entre Tokyo et Takayama, ce n'etait que 4 heures mais demain, c'est plus. Je ne sais pas si ce sera avec le train haute vitesse. Je ne vous en ai pas parle mais c'est vraiment fameux ! On ne sent pas la vitesse sauf quand on va aux toilettes. La, il faut se tenir.

Je vous reparle bientot.

Elo xx

... however, was very nice and friendly, although he didn’t speak a lick of English. Paid up front and he showed us to our room. Nice, 6-tatami mat room. Communal, but separate bathrooms and shared shower room. We drank our tea and ate our cookies and waited for supper.

Turned out we were the only guests eating supper that night. There was an English(?) family staying there as well, but they opted to go ...

... student.....being that we are soooo far behind, this will be - a picture is worth a thousand words...enjoy the pictures. Your students/children are doing great...we have been sleeping Japanese style on the floor for six nights and are anxious to move on to Hiroshima for real beds and bathrooms in our room. We have been taking the Japanese style baths every night!!...
Gosh, hard to believe our trip is almost over!!!

couldn't get to the computer last nite. only have a minute this morning.
took a train here yesterday. it's up in the "mountains", which are like big hills. it's really such a neat town. their specialty here is making sake and woodworking. i think i'll get a few real pretty bowls.
tim said yesterday on the train "show me the pictures of sedona", he was really missing her and he continues to narrate. as of ...

A Takayama on loge dans un temple, plutot sympa ! La ville est assez touristique et on comprend pourquoi : elle regorge de temples, vieilles batisses, distilleries de sake. Il y a beaucoup d'artisanat local : bois laque, sculptures, herbes sechees... Les sobas (nouille) au sarasin sont la specialite du coin et on approuve ;-) Toujours impossible d'aller a Kamikochi, meme de ce cote. On declare donc forfait et on part vers le sud...

... fermata a procacciarmi la colazione di domani mattina (continua ad indispormi dover spendere per la colazione tanto quanto si spende per un pranzo), e stufa delle brodaglie pseudocaffettose delle macchinette (uguali alle brodaglie dei vari locali, ma a meta' prezzo) stasera ho comprato il mio amato nescafe' (che stavolta non mi ero portata dietro, errore fatale quasi quanto quello del sacco a pelo... che testa dura, so che certe cose vanno ...

... snacks that we bought from vendors selling from small wooden windows in their storefronts. We walked along small canals lined by weeping willows and dotted with stone bridges. And we visited magnificent temples, many-storied pagodas, and Shinto shrines, perfectly planned and placed to maximize the quiet surrounding beauty of nature and to allow the assets of the location emphasize the highly stylized but clean, simple lines of the buildings. We ...