Shirakawago - A step back in time
Usually I loathe bus trips, but the scenery from Takayama to Shirakawago was just gorgeous. The hills were covered in bright greens, oranges, yellows, burnt reds it was beautiful. I never really got the whole Autumn thing before - being from Australia and all, and photos never really did Autumn justice to me - but being in Japan and seeing fall in all its glory made me fall in love with all things autumn. Wow!
I will have to admit after all this swanning on about how great the scenery was, that I actually didn't take any photos as they never turn out that great from bus windows, but not to worry - further on in the trip I continued to go to areas with lots of fall scenery and I managed to snap hundreds of shots :)
We arrived in Shirakawago just before 1.00, which also meant just in time for lunch. Hungry as we were though, we took quite a while to find a restaurant as we were just stunned at the reality of Shirakawago.
On the way in the bus drives through the greater Shirakawago area and I was about to set myself up for bitter disappointment. The area looked a little more built up than I imagined, and I only saw about one gassho house - this wasn't what I was expecting! All my romantic notions from those gorgeous snow covered gassho house marketing photos ruined! But no, luckily the bus drove right through that section of town and into a different valley - all isolated from the bigger area, surrounded by hills/mountains and a little village of gassho houses nestled in the middle.
The first experience in Shirakawago is the bus stop. It is the biggest bus stop I have ever seen, just lines and lines of buses with japanese tourists flooding out - they LOVE shirakawago. Here you will find some little shops and a museum, but on the other side of the Shogowa river over the bridge - is the little village of Ogimachi.
Did I mention the hundreds of tourists?
Our gassho was not so old though, as the original had to be rebuilt. However the house was still owned by the same family and the accommodation was more comfortable than I thought it would be.
Once we managed to get across the bridge (I just wanted to stay on it and take in all the beauty!) we headed straight to our gassho which was called Koemon and very easy to find. We dropped off our luggage and were shown around our room which was very traditional japanese and with no tv. The guesthouse provided us with a map of the area and some advice on where to go and what to do. With that all settled we headed straight out to eat!
Prior to getting to Japan I had researched a lot of places to go, and a lot of information came from blogs - one of my favourites was Pauls Travel Pics and he had blogged about a restaurant in Shirakawago with such enthusiasm about their Hida Beef that I had to go!
Pauls Travel Pics
And he was right. The hida beef was cheap, and delicious!
For the rest of the afternoon we followed the usual tourist trail - walking up to Shiroyama viewpoint and visiting some of the old farmhouses.
villagers rethatching a roof
Manhole covers are adorned with artwork all over Japan
I just love Shirakawago - the village seems to be the land that time forgot. Villagers stick to the traditional way of life, drinks are cooled in troughs full of icy mountain water, farmhouses are kept together by smoke, roofs are thatched by neighbours and friends. The flora and fauna also seem to have come from an undiscovered world, bright colours, copious amounts of them and enormous - which makes the local produce and flowers wonderful but the spiders terrifying;
crazy looking moth hummingbird thing!
Hoba leaves
We found another Hida Beef Bun stand, excellent!
Ok, enough of photo overload and back to our guesthouse Koemon. After a day full of walking through gorgeous smoky gassho farmhouses and dodging enormous bugs it was time to have dinner.
Dinner was served around an irori and during dinner the owner of the guesthouse who was quite good at English and very keen to talk to everyone, sat with the guests (3 couples) and told us a few stories and the history of Koemon.
Everytime we have stayed in a ryokan, or minshuku in this case - my bf has had just so much trouble with sitting down at dinner. He is quite tall, and the majority of his length is legs. Couple this with a yukata robe and dinner is quite the ridiculous event. Usually this just means he has his legs splayed embarrassingly or is constantly shifting and moving around... but this night took a different turn....
Picture this; he is wearing boxers, then a yukata and nothing else under it. We are being served dinner, with three couples sitting around the irori. An elderly japanese couple has come to stay at Koemon while they are on their way to see their son who is celebrating his birthday. They have a bit of a grasp of the english language and are attempting to communicate with us, when the man starts giggling. First of all, japanese men giggling look hilarious and ridiculously cute, but then again, why was this man suddenly struck with the giggles? He starts to point at my bf and through his giggles he spurts out 'ooh ooh! I can see your pikachu! I can see your pikachu!' I am sitting there struggling to interpret what this means and then we both realise. The lovely old japanese man AND his wife, can both see my bf's bits......
Koemon
The owner
Anyhooo.... back to Koemon again! After dinner the owner took us upstairs and explained that as the minshuku did not have tv, he would spend some time with us to entertain us. We all sat around as he told us stories, most of this being in Japanese. Besides the elderly couple, the other couple was a young japanese girl and her german boyfriend. Alas, we were the only ones not really understanding anything. Luckily the younger couple were absolutely lovely and translated quite a lot for us. After a few stories we all took turns telling everyone our backgrounds and why we were visiting Shirakawago. A strange but memorable night!
Hotel: Koemon
Price: 18,000Y for two including breakfast & dinner
Web: http://www.japaneseguesthouses.com/db/shirakawago/koemon.htm
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