Hida Takayama

Damien’s sister Bec and her husband Tony left this morning from a short visit to Japan. They are currently living in Shanghai so the flight was only a couple of hours. They spent two nights in Nagoya and then we met them at Kani station on Friday morning. It was really great to see them and to show them around our little area. They said that Japan was very different from China, almost opposites. We took them to a couple of our favorite local restaurants and then on Saturday afternoon we took a train up into the mountainous Hida region which is a couple of hours north of here.
The historic town of Takayama has become a real tourist attraction and is often called “Little Kyoto” because of all of its old preserved buildings and its conservative and elegant culture. We stayed in a small minshuku, family run Japanese style inn, near the station, called Sosuke. The building was 170 years old and was moved from the countryside into the city years ago. The inside was renovated but much of the exposed wood inside was beautiful and old. The sitting room was focused around an indoor firepit with a hanging kettle. This is called a irori and is common in areas that get rough winters.
Minshukus almost always include dinner and breakfast. The dinner we had was very nice and consisted of many courses made from local meat, fish and vegetables. Breakfast included a local specialty called hoba miso which is a sweet miso paste grilled over a small flame on a magnolia leaf and then eaten on rice. It was really good. We had some sashimi (raw fish) and when I asked what it was, I was surprised to find out that it was cat fish!!
We all had a good time walking around the old district, having coffee and snacks at small cafes, eating homemade soba noodles from a century old restaurant, and enjoying arguably the world’s best beef, Hida Beef. There were many beautiful shops with locally made artisan crafts and we even drooled over a couple of antique stores. I really wish I had a lot of money to spend of really nice Japanese décor!
The only bad part was that is rained all day on Sunday. It was hard to juggle umbrellas and cameras and backpacks. The most interesting old building we went through was a complex called Takayama jinya. It is the only government office building from the Edo era (the Tokugawa Shogun era 1603-1868). The architecture was astoundingly beautiful inside and out and it was a very rare opportunity to see an old building that was neither religious nor purely residential.
We would really love to go back there when we have more time and it isn’t raining. We actually had the option of living there and turned it down because we thought it would be a podunk country town. We were wrong, but it is too late now.
We were all a little Japanese food-ed out last night so we went to the really tasty Italian place here in Kani and a had a great multi-course dinner of pastas, pizzas, risottos and desserts! It was such a short trip that it went by in a flash. I guess the next time we will see them we will all be in Australia.
Now, we are back to work for a couple of weeks and then Heather and Jeremy come and we have a week off. We are going to Inuyama castle, Osaka, Himeji Castle, Nara, Kyoto (for Japan’s most famous festival), and Hikone castle.