Road Trip!

Travis took a day off to spend hanging out with me, and we decided to drive to nearby Takayama in Gifu Prefecture. I had been before during the fall festival, which is famous as one of the three best in Japan, so it had been very crowded. I was eager to see Takayama when it was a little less packed with humanity.



Takayama is a pretty easy day trip from Kanazawa if you are driving, but more of a weekend excursion if you take the bus. The town is famous for the well preserved Edo era town center, with old wooden shops and houses filling several square blocks. We found it was also quite famous for its sake, and we both picked up a bottle of milky white unfiltered Nihonshu.



I suppose the drizzling rain did its part to keep the crowds to a minimum, but I would have preferred sunshine and blue skies. We stopped for lunch at a small restaurant that served only hand made soba. Soba are buckwheat noodles, and are always served cold. In the summer, soba noodles are dipped in a cold broth as a refreshing meal in the sticky heat. Our late fall meal presented us with a hearty hot soup of duck and vegetables to dip the noodles into. I've always bought soba from the convenience store as a quick and cheap meal. It's not bad that way, but in no way compares to how amazingly delicious this simple dish tasted.



We also stopped by the old administrative center of the city and the area. The building had rooms for the local governmental officials and their staff, and it was fun to see a traditional Japanese building that wasn't a temple, shrine or castle. In a country that has seen so many earthquakes and fires, it is always nice to happen upon a little piece of preserved history.



Between Kanazawa and Takayama lies the World Heritage Site of Shirakawa-go. I had stopped at this collection of old farmhouses previously, but since I had been on the bus the stop was very brief. I jumped at the chance to spend some more time strolling among the gassho-zukuri (praying hands houses, so named for the angled shape of the thatched roof.) The area really is very beautiful, and I feel like I have to go back at least once more to really do it photographic justice. The heavy rain clouds and fading light were a great impediment to photography this day.



After spending all day walking around in the chill autumn rain, Travis and I both agreed that a brief onsen stop was in order. Near the parking lot was a small local bath house, complete with sauna and outdoor tubs. The best way to cap off a day of sightseeing in the Japanese Alps must be a good hot spring soak.

Photoshop Week Part 2: Altered Reality

First up we have digital sandwiches. These images have been melded with a blurred version of themselves to produce an interesting dreamy effect. It doesnt work with every image, but I kinda like these three.




A statue in Takayama.



Heian Shrine in Kyoto. (Look for another version of this picture on Friday!)



This was a fun one. It was late afternoon in Shirakawago, and the sun was no longer shining into the valley so the town was getting darker quickly. However the sky was still very bright, so any picture of the houses featured a blown out sky. Which was too bad as the clouds looked great. So I just took on picture of the beautiful sky, and one picture of the beautiful houses, and combined them. I think it looks pretty cool, even if, to my eye, the lighting and such in the scene isn't quite right. It doesn't really look real.



A nice artsy filter effect for the fish.

Houses of Prayer

My trip to Takayama enabled me to kill two traditional Japanese birds with one bus ride. While our main goal was to see Takayama and enjoy the festival, the Kanazawa-Takayama bus route goes by Shirakawa-go. Shirakawa is one of many World Heritage sites in Japan, and is dedicated to the preservation of a unique style of farmhouse.



The gasshō-zukuri style of thatched roof is unique to Japan, and especially to this area, Gifu Prefecture. Located deep in the Japan Alps, the area gets enough snow in winter to crush a more average looking roof, so the locals started constructing at a steeper incline.



Gasshō-zukuri literally means Praying Hands Style, as each house does look like a pair of hands, clasped in prayer. Like most other traditional homes, most of these old farm houses succumbed to development, but here and in nearby Toyama prefecture a handful were saved for the tourists.



Sadly, the bus only stops for 15 mintues, so overall I've had a tad under half an hour to explore Shirakawa-go, not really enough time to see everything. In fact, hardly enough time to snap a few pictures and take a quick bathroom break. I may come again, but since there are only the two buses per day to and from Kanazawa there is the choice of 15 minutes to explore or about 5 hours, 4 of boredom!

The Third Most Beautiful Festival In Japan

Why is that everything in Japan has been broken down into the top three? The top three gardens, beautiful views, festivals... According to whom? Well despite that, I'll admit that the Takayama Fall festival, what I saw of it, was indeed beautiful. It was also just a tad crowded.



Our first stop back in town was to swing by the morning market. I really wish Kanazawa had a nice riverside market like this every morning. The scenery and the wares on sale really complemented each other quite nicely. A good old-fashioned Farmer's Market! Well being it was festival day, it was a good, old-fashioned, overpopulated Farmer's Market!



Want a Fish on a Stick?






Next to the market the festival vendors had set up all their booths. I really, really love Japanese festival food. The supply of yakisoba, yakitori, shaved ice, chocolate covered bananas, steak skewers, chicken gyros, okonomiyaki... wait a minute, chicken gyros!? Luckily for my tastebuds there were a pair of authentic Turks dishing out some truly delectable pita breads stuffed with roasted chicken breasts. It was amazing. The Takayama specialty steak skewers were pretty nice as well, tender and juicy.



The real highpoint of the festival is the collection of floats. Now, for Takayama they have broken their festival up into Spring and Fall halves, and each half has its own floats. On the festival day they line the floats up for a few hours and let people take get up nice and close, then they parade around the streets. However, the real thrill comes at night when the floats are bedecked with lanterns and once again go on parade. Sadly both Anna and I had to work the next day, and couldn't stay for the night parade.





The floats were amazing, you could tell that a lot of time, effort, and talent had gone into their construction. It was too bad then that the whole area was just so insanely crowded. The crush of people was pretty intense, and the clicks, flashes, buzzes and whirrs from all the cameras, and camera phones, was seriously annoying. Everybody, including me, was jockying for position, and it was almost impossible to get a clear line of sight. Just as it was almost impossible to avoid being run over/ elbowed/ having your toes trod on by some crazed old lady in Festival Fever. *sigh*



The crazy crowd made sitting by the river and soaking up the autumn sun a popular option. The weather was glorious, the snacks delicious, and the din of the mob dampened. While there were plenty of families and groups enjoying the moment, there were far fewer than the slavering horde on the road above!



As our last action before catching the bus home, we hiked up to the ruins of Takayama Castle. There is not much more than foundation stones left, but it was a nice peaceful place. Anna's eagle eyes spotted a cute little grass snake, I had to surpress the urge to chase it down and capture it. I guess I have a bit of my father the trailside biologist in me.

Next: World Heritage Thatched Houses.

Deep in Gollum's Cave of Gloom.

Monday dawned bright and clear, a welcome sight after the cold rain of Sunday night. Breakfast was plentiful but dissapointing. After all, I like rice, miso, and salmon, I just don't like them first thing in the morning when I have a splitting headache and would really just prefer some buttermilk pancakes and coffee. Luckily the owner had some pretty powerful headache tabets, she was sure to get through to me the fact that I should not be driving AT ALL after taking one of her little pills. Yeah, me, who hasn't touched a steering wheel in over a year!

Looking at our map of the area Anna and I saw that there was a limestone cave you could visit located on our way back into town. Thinking that this would be a fun diversion we hopped on the bus and hopped off a short drive down the mountain ready to do a little spelunking.

Hmm, except that there was no cave in evidence. We walked over to a man playing with his kids near the bus stop and asked him where the cave was. He looked at the map and started laughing. It turned out that I had totally misread the map, while the cave was attraction # 16, I hadn't noticed that attractions and accomodations used different colors. Due to my foulup we had disembarked near Motel # 16, and the caves were still several miles down the road. Oh and did I mention that the bus runs every hour?

Suddenly our map reader hustled off into the house to fetch his wife, who spoke excellent English. We started chatting and it turned out that her sister had lived in America for 5 years, in Colorado Springs no less! It makes you wonder about that 6 degrees of seperation.

She told us that her husband was going to drive us to the caves, and sure enough he starts piling his totally cute kids into the mini van. We hopped into the back and away we went. This was not the first time some random Japanese person has offered me an unlooked for ride, and it always surprises me just how polite and helpful total strangers can be here.



Adjacent to the cave system was a two story museum that had all sorts of geology/ gemology related displays. Fossils, sculptures, weapons, and models of castles made of pearls! This one is Nagoya Castle. Tacky yet fascinating.





Once we made it inside you could tell you were in a traditional limestone cave. For those not in the know, limestone caves are very much active, stream drivin cave systems. Lots of dripping, slipping, and rushing water. Especially as it had rained the past evening, there was plenty of fresh, and chill, water to supply the cave's stream.





There was no tour, just the opportunity to explore the labyrinth on our own. Most people in the area were probably either at the festival or still in bed, it was about 9 in the morning, so the cave was almost totally empty. The fantastic shapes of the stalagtites and stalagmites were well lit with eerie green and pink lights, and the whole experience was pretty fascinating. Of course I would have appreciated a little bit of English signage, but we were pretty far off the beaten tourist track.





At the end of the cave was a little shrine. And after the shrine was a... gift shop! Plenty of gifts, trinkets, keepsakes, snacks and other assorted bits of junk to spend money on littered the shop. We sped through quickly, jogging down the mountain to make sure we could catch the next bus. We made it by over 15 mintues, which gave me a brief window to call home and brag about my recent adventures.

Next: The Morning Market, Festival and a touch of chicken gyros!

Sister Cities

Denver has sister city relationships with several cities scattered around the world, but interestingly enough one of those cities is Takayama, in nearby Gifu Prefecture. I have wanted to see Takayama ever since my original foray into Japan on vacation, but its rather remote mountain location has kept me away, until now!



With a three day weekend and tales of a huge festival (one of the top three in Japan!) I started making plans to visit. While at one time we had as many as four peope in our travel group, at the end it was just me and my good friend Anna. We eschewed the long trip on Japan Rail and opted instead for the cheaper and more direct bus. The trip up through the mountains was glorious, and on the way we stopped at Shirakawa-go for a brief photo stop and bathroom break. (As an UNESCO World Heritage site Shirakawa-go will get its own blog entry.)



Takayama is unique among Japanese cities. Not only did it not get bombed, it also avoided the ramapant redevelopment that has marred other once pristine cities like Kyoto or even Kanazawa. This isn't to say that Takayama is devoid of the "concrete look," but it does retain the original Edo-era downtown, a charming cluster of old merchant houses and shops. Shops offer lots of local wares and and nick-nacks. They also had frozen sake cocktails, talk about a wonderful combo!



The weather on Sunday was insane. Clouds, rain, bright sunshine, clouds, sun... all in about 5 minutes! It made setting up for photgraphs very difficult, I would get the exposure right and then the sun would come out and flood everything with light. At least it didn't pour rain all day, though later in the evening a chill bit of rain fell on the mountains.





I'm not sure who this is, but dang if he isn't cool. He had a less interesting long-legged counterpart across the street as well. The pair seemed to be a rather famous couple of mascots for the city.



With the third most popular festival in town, accomodations have to be booked months in advance. We booked a week or so in advance, and were lucky to get this ski-lodge located 40 minutes outside of town. It was half deserted, and had a musty, stuffy air to it, like the owners had been there a long, long time. There were cases of ski trophies and medals, stuffed animals, antiques, dolls, and assorted ... stuff. Anna commented that it was very "The Shining" and she was not far wrong.



While it was not the Comfort Inn, it was a warm, dry place to sleep and so was greatly appreciated. The proprietress was helpful to the point of smothering, I got the feeling that they don't get many foreign types in this neck of the woods.

Well it was a long great day, and we were pretty bushed. Bed time was around 7:15. The next day promised to be great... it was festival day!

Turning and Burning

I have always had a weakness for airplanes, especially military types. With their speed and pure maneuverability they seem the purest expression of mankind's desire to fly. While in Inuyama the other day, I saw a poster for the Gifu Air Day coming up on the weekend. An open house on Gifu JASDF Airbase. (Japan Air Self Defense Force, wow that is a mouthful.) I texted Jared to see if he was interested in going, and not only was he interested, but one of his students had already invited him. So I got to tag along with them, in a car! No walking in the rain from the train station, nope we got to ride in style from the train station. Once their I discovered that not only did we all get on the base for free, but we got access to the VIP section. Nobuyuki (Jared's student) gets VIP tickets from his work every year. Now this goes beyond luck to pure divine intervention!

While the rain was a bit depressing, watching high performance military jets strut their stuff (turning and burning) was great. The ease at which the F-15s and 16s could change directions was amazing, and the noise they make is epic. I'd like to see a bass guitarist try and match that rumble. Other than jets we also got to see a rescue helicopter 'rescue' a man, and even two batches of 14 para jumpers leaping out of a perfectly good airplane. They were leaping pretty low too, both for our benefit and because of a low cloud ceiling. Unfortunately because of the weather the main event, a performance by Japanese stunt team Blue Impulse, was canceled. What we saw was still a ton of fun and very impressive, especially for the price of admission. An interesting aside, all the jets they flew were American models. There were no home grown makes in the JASDF, which seemed strange based on Japans reputation for high tech. But one of my students noted that she thinks that there is a blanket ban on armament production from Japanese industry dating from the end of World War II. So there you go, if they want nice jets, they have to buy them from somewhere, and they get them from the US. Crazy.



now thats what I call a runway model! F/A 18 on loan from US for the day.



Weeeeeeeeee!



F-15 taxis past the VIP stand.




Myself and Jared in front of an E-2 Hawkeye carrier born early warning radar plane.




The Rescue helicopter. A very impressive pilot, he did some showing off after he had picked up the man from the field.