Day 8 Exploring Takayama

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Retyped from hand written text

Right now I am writing this on paper, Drinking the usual Green tea whilst cooling down from a heat I thought was not possible for a human being to endure. Yes I have just had a bath at the Inn. In the traditional manner there is a shared bath but here one bath is all you get. But as with the other it is set to the usual superheated temperatur which in my opinion is only possible with a kettle element. But I have to admit it feels great even if this time it is ordinary water!
Right on todats happenings. Got up at the usual 6am I had arranged for breakfast at 7am so I had time to pop to the morning market just across the bridge (for the veg growers out there, we have nothing on the japenese. The shear size of their produce was boggling). Back to the Inn. bed was gone and my table was back ready fro breakfast. I cannot say this enough but the food over here and in particular this Inn is simply outstanding it is plentyful and of a quality I could only dream of to this point, alas it had me beaten, i could not finish it all.
So at 8am I set off again, this time armed with my coat and fleece (it was a hard frost last night up here) and headed off to the folk museum on foot, their is a bus option but i neede to use my legs. On the way there I rememebered reading about the Sukyo Mahikari (world shrine) a massive building relating to some form of buddism I believe., it was easy to spot as it has a red golf ball on the top (That means god is present), anyway I headed off in that direction. Again no photos allowed inside but it was very impressive alomost awe inspiring .... until..... A woman who is part of the religion started to talking to me about it, how it can bring inner light to peopleand how it can cure cancer!. Well to phrase thsi nicely it kind of took the shine off the place and the people.
On the way to the above place I passed a shrine (shinto) it has the standard Grinkco (not sure thats right spelling) tree thats 1200 years old, it caught my eye as the leaves were just falling off it, I mean falling like someone was shaking it, there was no wind it was cold but the leaves were comming down like some sort of mass leave suicide. Most of the locals were getting very excited by this (old and young alike) someone explained that if the grinkco tree does this it means snow is on its way soonAand no one in living memory can remember the last time this happened!

So onto the Hida folk museum, It is a collection of japanese houses rebuilt on this site it is declared a UNESCO world heritage site. it was very good but the steam comming off some of the roofs as the sun warmed them was outstanding.
Sorry for being brief here but I am worried this is getting a bit long
Back into town and headed for the float museum, now this does not contain ordinary floats as per the Lord mayors parade, these are insured by the japanese Goverment as to replace one would cost 2 million pounds. There are eleven of these in the Autumn festival, four at the museum and the rest kept around the town I would guess for insurance purposes but yes you guessed it they were impressive!.
Next the old private merchant houses. Some of these are used for sake brewing as it is one of the local specialities . hmmm yes I would say it was ;-). The sake was helpful as I was begining to ache from all the walking, so back to the Inn to pickle myself in the hot bath. Tomorrow I head for Hiroshima with a stop at Himeji castle which has been used in films like you only live twice and the last samuari, Judging by the way I felt visiting cemetaries in France, Hiroshima could get a bit of an emotional ride!

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Photos

The falling leaves
Fab

Big temple that can cure cancer
hmmm nough said

The temple from the Folk village
It was big and impressive, no matter what they can cure

The folk village
The scene as you enter

The ball of sake
The ball means it is a brewery.

The float museum
Sorry about the quality, it was taken through glass

I like sake
nuff said hic!!