World Heritage in Gifu Japan!

岐阜県での冒険
Gifu Prefecture Adventure
Saturday, 11th - Monday, 13th October 2008

Naomi and I made the 500km trip by car from Hiroshima to Gifu Prefecture, home to Japan's world heritage listed Shirakawa-go and the nearby beautiful town of Takayama.　The trip took just under 8 hours one way using the highway from Hiroshima Prefecture costing just over 10,000 yen (AUD150).

The Tokai-Hokuriku highway runs from the Nagoya area and new sections have opened recently to traffic making the trip there fairly easy. There are some 54 tunnels that make up the highway one being 11km long - the longest tunnel I have ever driven through!

Shirakawa-go is known for it's world heritage listed thatched roof buildings which date back to the 18th century. The town has resisted modern development and has an attractable and unique atmosphere. There are dozens of the traditional houses scattered around the town. They are also run as bed & breakfast inns.

We stayed the night at Kanja, a family run inn with a handful of rooms separated by paper thin sliding doors called fusuma. If you're a light sleeper than the snoring coming from the rooms beside yours may keep you up! The couple in the middle and the two guys standing on the right were guests and we all had a good old chat over dinner and breakfast. In the morning we all went our separate ways.

this a picture of our room. While you are eating dinner in the dining room, the children run down the corridor dragging the futons for each of the guests to their rooms which are made up when you return! It's all part of the gassho-zukuri experience.

this is myozenji-kyodokan (Myozen Temple - folk museum). Inside you can marvel at the architecture of the gassho-zukuri house. On display are various types of tableware that were once used as well as agricultural machines and tools.

This is an irori - Japanese for fireplace which played a couple of important roles in the house. One of course being for the preparation of food. The other an innovative technique using the rising heat to warm up the upstairs area. Shirakawa-go is located up in the mountains close to the Japan Sea. In winter the cold Arctic air that flows in from the north bringing with it sub zero temperatures and heavy snow fall make this an important and essential item for the house!

this is the breakfast served at the gassho-zukuri house. Rice, miso soup, kousouyaki (local food - miso, onion & mushroom), dried seaweed, pickles and a raw egg!

the house in the background in called Wadake. It is probably the most well known of the gassho-zukuri houses and is often the subject of many photographs. You can see it standing out clearly in the first photo of this entry. The house dates back to the Edo period and is still used today as a residential property. It is also listed as in important cultural property. Visitors are able to enter and get a feel for what life would have been like living in such a place.


Naomi's best shot!

this is the upstairs floor of the house where you can see the rafters that support the thatched roof. According to the owners of the inn that we stayed at, the roofs which are made from straw are replaced every 30 years and up to one hundred town folk help out to re-fit an entire roof! There are photographs of this exercise taking place in the houses and I must say it is quite a sight!

This cabinet houses silk worms which produce raw silk that was sold to generate an income for the household

this is deai-bashi (deai bridge) that takes you over the river to the other side

a short drive north of Shirakawa-go finds oneself in Toyama Prefecture which is also the home to various heritage listed gassho-zukuri sites. This above photo shows Gokayama (五箇山) which Naomi and I decided to visit before heading to Takayama. It was a pleasant place to visit, still full of tourists but also had its own unique atmosphere.



me caught on camera taking a photo!

this is a traditional gassho-zukuri shed used to house farming equipment


a photo of the village itself. All gassho-zukuri houses are occupied

we had a refreshing cup of macha - Japanese powdered green tea with some local dango - Japanese dumplings

Takayama is about a 40 minute drive from Shirakawa-go and is well known for its old streets. Most of the buildings have been restored from the Edo and Meiji periods. There are many Japanese sake factories present. You can often see a sugitama hanging above the entrance way which is a symbol that new sake has been produced and is on sale.

While walking around the town of Takayama in the early evening we happened to pass this little workshop. The craft work caught my eye and we stopped to have a look. This craftsman spends his days carving mainly owls of all sizes from a special local wood. The technique he uses is called ichibori in Japanese. The craftsman said that the smaller owls take him a few hours to carve out but the larger ones can take up to two or three days. Naomi bought me a pair of the small ones. These owls are said to bring good luck.

these people are lining up to buy the famous koroke - deep fried potato - but these ones are special because they have hida beef in them! Naomi and I had one each!


like most things deep-fried it was yummy!

most people use a pram to push their children around however.......

take a look in the pram and tell me what you can see!

Dogs in Japan seem to get treated like humans! Over the years that I have been here in Japan I have come across many people who are fanatical about dogs, especially tiny house dogs that their owners spend more than I spend on food in a month on dog clothes, hair trimming and accessories including the pram above! On this trip we noticed a dozen or so people pushing dogs around the place in comfy looking prams treating them out for the day! The wind was a little chilly so the dog blankets kept them warm too!

Hida beef is a famous product in the area. This is raw hida beef sushi! I wasn't sure at first but the meat basically melted in my mouth once I bit into it! It was delicious but too expensive to make a habit of eating it!

this is one of the many stalls that can be found in the Takayama morning markets. You can find locally produced goods and locally grown vegetables and fruit sold directly by the farmers themselves. It was a pity we were over 500km away from home!

The day we arrived in Takayama, we went for a 4km stroll around the town and on the way down from Shiroyama (literally castle mountain ) we passed this attractive looking tea house. It was too late to stop at that time so we returned the next morning for a coffee.



the coffee came out on Japanese china and we also enjoyed some local sweets made from soy beans coated in sugar.

First snow fall in Hiroshima Prefecture!

Wednesday, 19th November
庄原市東城町
Tojo Town


It is a couple of degrees below zero here in Tojo this morning and we have had the first snow fall of the year with a layer of white covering the red, orange and yellow colours of autumn. Last year we didn't have any snow settling on the ground until the beginning of December so hopefully this means we will have good snow fall this year. Perfect for snowboarding!

A breath of fresh autumn air - Taishaku Gorge

Naomi, myself, Corrina & Yoshi

Sunday, 2nd November 2008
帝釈峡
Taishaku-kyo / Taishaku Gorge

Autumn is here in Japan and the temperature has dropped a fair bit. The deep red, yellow and green leaves that make the mountains stand out like lights on a Christmas tree are beautiful to gaze at. Taishaku Gorge is popular place to go for a walk around this time of the year.

Lake Shinryu

神龍湖

the trees surrounding the house really stood out

Naomi rowing the boat right on course!

I have never seen a snake swimming live! It was pretty fast!

Corrina & Yoshi managed to catch up eventually!

a maple tree showing off its beautiful orange and red colours

Ultimate Seclusion - The Iya Valley - worth the 5 year wait

PART TWO OF TWO

武家屋敷
First built in 1763, this is a restored version built in 1990
It housed the family of a samurai

Sunday, 20th July 2008

After having lunch we continued in an easterly direction. We got half way between Mt. Tsurugi and the Iya Valley where we found the turn off for the samurai house that we were interested in seeing. The sign said it was 3.9km away and I figured that it would be a fairly easy drive on a fairly straight road but I couldn't have been more wrong! The road was steep and full of potholes and blind curves. It was a rough trip UP! UP! and UP! The road was only wide enough for 1 and a half cars abreast and there was no railing at certain parts. I had to alternate between second and first gears for the ascent and luckily managed to make it up there without meeting another car making its way down. There is no way that I would have made it up there alive in winter! The amazing thing is that there are so many homes scattered around the place. Naomi and I were trying to figure out how these people (not only now but in the past) get up this mountain in winter with all the snow. We were also curious as to what they actually do for a living since this place is pretty remote - more remote than Tojo!

In the samurai house there was a lovely lady who showed us around and offered some answers to our questions.

She mentioned that in winter they don't have any problems going up and down the mountain! nor have they ever! She has lived here all her life and told us stories about her younger years.

The small community was and is still fairly self-sufficient, meaning that they grow their own produce for consumption and don't rely heavily on going to the shops for goods. She did say that they do go to the shops every now and then for meat and fish freezing goods for consumption later. They often take turns to go out and buy goods for each other to save the hassle. A lot of the people living there are elderly thus they make daily trips to see a doctor. Their diet consists of rice, mountain vegetables and anything else that they can find. In the past they used to sell daizu - Japanese soy beans, miso – soybean paste and salt to make money. They also used to grow tobacco plants. She mentioned that the leaves of the tobacco plant left a very strong smell on clothes so they used to make tobacco farming only clothes from old cloth which they could dispose of afterwards. In the past they lived on whatever they could grow and life was different to the life we live now where most of us are able to buy things such as fruit when they are out of season and eat the things we like when we like.

you can see how steep the mountain is and also see the pine plantations

In Japan there are many pine plantations in places that make you wonder how they actually managed to get up there and plant the little trees. I asked her about this because there was a section on the mountain range across from where the house was. She said that she helped plant those several decades ago when she was younger. She explained how they use to make a temporary road that traversed up the mountain. There, they carried small pines on their backs and planted them one by one. The work must have been painstakingly difficult.

We spent some more time looking around the place before making our way back down again.

This time we were not so lucky. A car was making its way up and we had to pass each other somehow! After reversing back up a few metres we passed each other and we continued the trip down. We continued, back on what they call a 'main road' but of course its not, to Oku-Kazura Bridge located in pristine surroundings. It had more of a unique atmosphere than the tourist packed Kazura Bridge that we visited earlier that day.

They had a ride called a 野猿 - () where several ropes are connected to two points on both sides of the river. A small wooden box is attached to one of the ropes. The idea is that you have to pull yourself along with another rope inside the box. It's a lot of fun and you need a bit of strength to get the box all the way to the platform otherwise you will swing until someone comes to rescue you!

We had another half hour in the car to go before arriving at our accommodation for the night, La Foret Lodge at an altitude of 1500 metres above sea level located in the area surrounding Mt. Tsurugi. This place is fairly cheap and provides clean basic accommodation for mountain trekkers who will be up early to climb up the rest of the way to the peak of Mt. Tsurugi.

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Monday, 21st July 2008

MT. TSURUGI
剣山
標高１９９５
Altitude 1995m

The next morning we woke up fairly early and headed to the chair lift that takes you almost to the summit of Mt. Tsurugi.

The weather was great in the morning with clear skies but as we sat on the lift the weather started to change and the temperature drop! You can see in this photo that we are as high up as the bottom of the clouds! Pretty cool! Once up the top you can choose from several paths varying in length and difficulty. We chose the shortest but steepest! It took about an hour to get to the top but once there we were pleasantly surprised!

at the top! 1995 metres


from the summit - the roads you can see are at an altitude of 1500 metres. If you follow the lower road it would take you to the Iya Valley where we came from

this path takes you to the next mountain, named JIROGYU　（ジロギュウ）
The mountain peak is slightly lower in altitude - 1929 metres

This path takes you to the mountain directly to west of Mt. Tsurugi -
Ichi-no-mori (一の森)　1879 metres

at the peak there was a group of young people praying

The trip to Mt. Tsurugi was fantastic. You could spend a whole day or perhaps two climbing the 3 mountains which offer breathtaking scenery. The temperature at the peak was 20 degrees and once we were back at sea level several kilometres north the temperature was a sizzling 35 degrees. We really felt the heat. We drove on the highway all the way back home.

from the town directly north of Mt. Tsurugi - you can see the mountain ranges from where we just came from

Tokushima Prefecture has some of the most dramatic scenery I have seen in Japan and there is some exciting driving to be done in remote areas with spectacular mountain drops, hairpin curves and narrow roads that traverse the sides of mountains. You really feel like you have left the hustle and bustle of the major centres where the majority of Japans population lives.

After 5 years living and working in Japan, The Iya Valley - which has given me unforgettable memories - will be and remain as one of my favourite places in Japan.

A clear night and a full moon

Wednesday, 15th October 2008

It was a perfect clear autumns day with clear skies remaining through the early night before the fog set over the town. The moon was out shining slightly above the mountain range where Tojo lies and had a tinge of yellow to it before it rose up higher glowing a bright white.