Well we’ve arrived safe and sound back at Kiminomori several hours and service areas after leaving Hida Takayama on our tour bus. The SA as they call the service areas are not unlike gas stations and rest stops along highways in the West for cars, trucks and buses. Toilet breaks and lots of food and souvenirs… I think we stopped one too many times as every SA is known for having their own specialty kind of food and I ate too much in addition to all the great food on the tour.
I took around 400 shots over a span of two days with my a33 while my wife snapped over 250 with her Lumix GF1 micro four thirds camera (dare I say her pictures were better than mine). I thought before hitting my emails I’d do a quick post on the blog since I just finished batching my pictures in Lightroom. The above shot is from the street leading up to Zenkoji Temple in Nagano while the picture below is of the hotel in Hakuba at 6:30 am. The hotel was surprisingly good. Comfortable, great buffet and awesome natural hot springs bath. Also a quick walk to the ski jump site and alpine downhill from the Nagano Olympics.
The main part of this tour was to visit the historic villages of Shirakwa-go and Hida Takayama. Shirakawa-go is located in the village of Shirakawa in Gifu Prefecture. The village is well known for their houses constructed in architectural style known as gasshozukuri. The Gassho-zukuri, “prayer-hands construction” style is characterized by a thatched and steeply slanting roof resembling two hands joined in prayer. The design is exceptionally strong and, in combination with the unique properties of the thatching, allow the houses to withstand and shed the weight of the region’s heavy snowfalls in winter.
The houses are large, with three to four stories encompassed between the low eaves, and intended, historically, to house large extended families and a highly-efficient space for a variety of industries. The densely-forested mountains as you can see in my photo above, still occupy 96% of all land in the area, and prior to the introduction of heavy earth-moving machinery, the narrow bands of flat lands running the length of the river valley limited the area available for agriculture and homestead development. The upper stories of the gassho houses were usually set aside for sericulture, while the areas below the first floor were often used for the production of nitre, one of the raw materials needed for the production of gunpowder. An example of one of the houses is below and you see the thatched straw roof. (more images in the gallery below).
As you can see from most of my pictures, the weather did not cooperate so well with us on our tour. We booked the trip several months ago and unfortunately sunny weather was not one of the tours guaranteed options! The weather began to clear a bit as we headed to Hida Takayama. Takayama was settled as far back as the Jomon period which is 14000-300BC, yeah that’s a long time ago . Takayama is famous for its expertise in carpentry. It is believed carpenters from Takayama worked on the Imperial Palace in Kyoto and on many of the temples in Kyoto and Nara.
The town and its culture, as they exist today, took shape at the end of the 16th century, when the Kanamori clan built Takayama Castle. About a hundred years later the city came under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate. However, the high altitude and separation from other areas of Japan kept the area fairly isolated, allowing Takayama to develop its own culture over about a 300-year period. We visited what is called the old town section which still retains the old look but has pretty much become narrow streets of tourist attractions selling souvenirs and all kinds of delicious foods.
It was a short and sweet trip but one wonderful thing about Japan is how different areas in the country all have their own unique culture and character. I hope I can do this more often and share at least some different parts of Japan with you all. It’s not all about high tech, golf clubs, anime, and idols. Though the next time I post like this for Golf to Impress will probably be from the streets of Tokyo which in itself, is a whole other world.
Here are some of my pics from this short trip:
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I know this is a golf blog but thank you for this. I love seeing and learning about different countries. thank you, Problem is my wife looks at this stuff too and she makes a list of everywhere we are going on vacation for the next ten years.
Tokyo would definitely be a contrast to your current trip. You need to share pictures of all the delicious meals you’ve been having! :)
Enjoyed reading and seeing all the cool Takayama and Shirakawa-go pics. Thank you for writing about Hida Takayama. I always look for quality posts that write about Hida. Your’s is deifnitely from that category.
I shared a link to your post on our Hida Takayama facebook page. Feel free to look for us, join us and share more photos of your Japan trip!
Just look for Hida Takayama on facebook. We’ve got a lot of photos from this year’s Takayama spring festival. So check us out if your are intersted!
Thank you!
Beautiful countryside. Those of us in the U.S. forget how diverse the land is in Japan. We tend to think it is all as crowded as Tokyo. One day maybe on my next trip to Australia, I will visit your wonderful nation.
I agree with Fatman, need pics on food T. I miss the food in Japan. Especially the ambience in Tsikiji Market back in Tokyo
this is just lovely. I love how japan people still keep the ‘pureness’ in architecture form and cultural aspect despite how busy and compact of daily life in modern days. just admire it~ thanks for sharing the photos. would love to visit Japan one day.