Hakusan Forest Road / Shirakawa Village, Gifu

Chieko and I headed out around 7:30 this morning for our previously mentioned scenic drive. We wanted to beat the notorious traffic on the forest road by getting there as close to the 8 a.m. opening as we could. Our early rising paid off as traffic was very light the whole time we were on the road. The leaves are just starting to turn up at higher altitudes in the mountains, and at the bottom everything is still very much green. But given the crisp blue skies and spectacular mountain scenery, the color of the leaves didn't matter too much to us.

However, I have to say the forest road was a bit disappointing in one regard: the price. It costs about $30 to gain one way access on the road; a round trip ticket is closer to $50. That's expensive but initially I didn't have too much of an issue forking over the cash, considering all the hype I'd heard about the road. But even though we stopped quite a bit along the road, we were done with it in just over an hour. You can spend a lot more time getting out and hiking around the various waterfalls and other trails by the road, and perhaps we should have done that to make it more worth our while. The other thing that irked me was realizing that I've driven on several other roads in Japan that were equally if not more breathtaking in both views and vertigo inducing hairpin, cliff side turns, and they didn't cost me anything. So, not a total bust with the Hakusan Forest Road, but I have doubts about whether I'll be doing it again. If I do, I'll be sure to get a lot more money's worth by spending more time hiking around.

Here's Hakusan from a distance:



And using the zoom to capture the volcanic goodness:



Are we in America? No. We don't see many of these big boys in Japan, but just like Americans, Japanese will drive the damn things anywhere, including narrow, curving mountain roads.



The forest road dumps you out into Gifu prefecture, which is next to Ishikawa, where we live. (For those of you not familiar with Japan, they use the term 'prefecture' like we use 'state' in the US. It was basically like driving from Massachusetts to New Hampshire.) A short drive from there leads you down into a valley where you'll find Shirakawa Village, the World Heritage site I mentioned in my previous post. It's famous for its well-preserved thatched roof houses and barns. Again, arriving early proved a smart move as the place was mobbed by the time we left around 11:30 this morning, and the line of traffic leading into town looked like a lot of fun. Actually the high season for Shirakawa is the winter, when it is inundated with snow and the thatched roofs look especially picturesque. But today was a national holiday here in Japan, and that combined with the budding fall foliage might have contributed to all the visitors.

The setting couldn't be more beautiful here, with the town completely surrounded by mountains and, despite being a bit tourist trappy, quite quaint. There was a great outdoor museum where, for the bargain price of 500 yen, we walked around and inside of several very well-preserved old houses.

At the not-so-bargain price of 400 yen, on the other hand, I had to spring for a kabob of the famous 'Hida beef' that is one of Gifu's claim to fame. It was nice, and I wish I had more of it to eat.

We decided to high-tail it out of town though as the narrow streets were getting uncomfortable congested with people and cars, and we'd been trekking around for long enough. We took a different route back to Kanazawa that also wound its way through the mountains and along rivers, and was very nice and very free.

This is Shirakawa from an overlook on the edge of town. You can see some of the thatched A-frames.





Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa----



Maybe time to consider a new taxidermist? These bears in the entrance to the outdoor museum were crazy looking and had the goofiest looks on their faces. I think it was the teeth. Wish I had gotten better pics.



We arrived home just before 3. Chieko promptly passed out for a nap while I watched enough of the Patriot's game to realize I didn't want/need to see any more. I went to the gym for a while this evening, and am now preparing myself mentally and physically to try and get up at 5:30 tomorrow morning to catch the Sox/Rays game. At the very least I'll get up and put it on the Slingbox before zonking out again. Speaking of which, I'm not long for this world at the moment, so you all have a nice day. Good night.