Blogs from Hida, Takayama, Gifu, Japan, Asia

A Glimpse of Olden Day Japan....Takayama Left Tokyo for Takayama in the afternoon. With the JR pass, we proceeded to book our tickets at the JR counter at Akihabara station. Unfortunately, the train ride to Nagoya is fully booked for the non-smoking reserved seats and we had to make do with the smoking cabin, for fear that there won't be seats for us in the non-smoking unreserved seats. But we regretted this decision the moment we settled in our seats. The journey from Tokyo to Nagoya takes around 2 hours and there was no way we could hold our breath the entire ride. It took us less than 5min to decide that we should look for a non-smoking unreserved seat. After passing through nearly 10 cabins (not before passing through the smoking unreserved cabin, which was ... read more

Hida Folk Village - Situated on the foot of the mountains, Hida Folk Village presents as a heritage community with traditional Japanese farmhouses, storehouse for drying the rice crop, two mills, woodcutters hut, a sawmill, a fire lookout, and shrines, most of which have been relocated from the nearby villages and reconstructed for the exhibitions. Four thatched are designated as National Important Folk Cultural Assets. Visitors are encouraged to look round those houses and see 5,000 items of tools and devices which were used for local industries and agriculture. The volunteers demonstrate how the authentic product, e.g. wooden spoon was made and the past expertise was carried out, e.g. woodcutter slicing the timber, making the threads with the spinner. The silkworm industry’s exhibition includes the display of the alive silkworms eating mulberry leaves. The visitors are ... read more

Konnichiwa! Jetzt haben wir schon eine Woche hinter uns. Es gibt so viel Erzaehlenswertes, dass wir vermutlich Schwierigkeiten haben werden, uns kurz zu fassen. Wir bitten um Nachsicht... Die ersten 2 Tage waren wir in Tokio. Die Stadt an sich ist fuer so eine grosse Stadt erstaunlich unspektakulaer; man kann aber ganz gut herumschlendern und findet einige schoene Stellen; es gibt sogar einen netten Strand (aber ohne Bademoeglichkeit). "Richtige" Sehenswuerdigkeiten gibt es dagegen nicht so viele, und es ist erstaunlich ruhig. In einigen Ecken sind tatsaechlich die Grillen lauter als der Verkehrslaerm; der Fluesterasphalt macht's moeglich. Am zweiten Abend haben wir ein paar Kollegen getroffen: Yoko ist tatsaechlich so, wie man es von ihren Mails her schon erwartet hatte - sehr nett, unkompliziert, lustig, selbstbewusst und erstaunlich locker und direkt. Uda-san und Nakagawa-san... read more

Day 7/8 The next morning I had a spa in the Onsen (opting for the indoor one due to my cold) the outdoor one would have been an experience with all the snow around. Having a cold in Japan was a bit difficult as culturally blowing your nose is not polite. You sort of have to go to a corner or hide behind you hand. Many Japanese wear face masks when they are unwell to prevent spreading germs I think. Then a change of plans was made as the sun was shining and our leader Tatsuya had seen that Mt Fuji was visible on the internet. So we delayed our leaving and jumped on a bus to a different viewing area. It was well worth the trip. I thought that we would only see Mt Fuji ... read more