Mino - Paper City

I mentioned in my last blog that we bought an old Japanese scroll that was ripped a little at the top. In order to fix it we asked around to find out where we could buy washi (Japanese paper). Everyone said, "Oh, go to Mino city, they are famous for washi!". I looked it up on the internet and found out that Mino has been a paper making city since the 700s. I guess they probably have pretty good paper there! It was about an hour by train into the mountains. The town was obviously old and small and quaint and probably doesn't see many Western faces as we got a lot of stares. The town has a large area where most of the houses and buildings are from the Edo era (1600s-mid 1800s). The main architectual feature they are known for are the udatsu. These are large ornate firewalls that helped to protect against the spread of fire from house to house. They were also a way for families to show off their weath and status. There are many paper shops, although the number of families still making paper has dwindled to around 30. One of the old houses is now a musuem and it was amazing. A rambling complex of elegant tatami rooms, old kitchens, Japanese gardens, centuries old storage buildings and sliding doors. We also sort of toured a sake brewery that went back and back and back full of nooks and crannies. I say sort of because apparently they just let anyone in that wants to go look. It was a real working brewery that looked 100s of years old.
There just happened to be a festival this weekend. It was a very local festival where each of the 6 surrounding towns bring in their special float and parade it around the town and then gather for a big celebration at the shrine. We kind of felt out of place. But everyone was friendly. We were stopped on the street in the morning by this cute old guy and we were talking with him for a bit in my meager Japanese. We saw him later in the afternoon at the shrine and he came over and we talked some more. He was enamoured with Damien's facial hair and kept saying how cool it was! I asked him if he spoke English and he said he was 72 years and too old to learn. We talked with an older couple in the sushi restaurant we had lunch in too. I have cetainly gotten to practice my Japanese this weekend!
We walked down by the big river and saw an old lighthouse from the 1700s. We ended by going through a paper lantern musuem and then finally buying our washi paper. We were exhausted by the afternoon and headed back to the station. The station was just a big delapidated wooden building with cats everywhere. I assume they are train savvy!

I also want to let you know that Flickr now allows videos so I have posted one from Mino City and a few others from the past couple of weeks. We will start taking more videos from now on.