Takayama, Gifu

In my last post I cryptically mentioned that Chieko and I were driving 'somewhere.' I wasn't trying to hide any information, we just hadn't quite solidified our plans yet. We had been toying with the idea of heading south, and hitting up the recently famous town of Obama in Fukui prefecture, but in the end we headed into the mountains to a small city call Takayama, located in Gifu prefecture. Gifu is to the west of Ishikawa, where we live.

In retrospect this trip was had an air of doom to it from the start. We new we were heading into the mountains with snow in the forecast. When we woke up to this, the first snow of the year here in Kanazawa, it was clear that we were heading into the mountains with snow in the forecast without the benefit of snow tires.



Chieko's parents have kept our snow tires at their place up in Niigata until now since they have all kinds of room there, and before moving into this house we didn't have much space. And it gave us a good excuse to go visit them for a weekend every fall. But when they were down to visit us this week, they brought the tires with them. Unfortunately, it promptly started raining and I was in no mood to toil over a tire change in a cold rain and a wicked wind.

So off we went, battling wind, rain, sleet, and occasionaly snow, and we hadn't even started our trek up into the mountains, where the precipitation was certain to all be frozen. At one point we debated ditching the car at the foot of the mountains and taking the train up to Takayama, but ended up seeing how far we could get without things getting too sketchy.

As luck would have it, while we did encounter one pretty good snow squall, the roads were free of any ice or snow, and we arrived with nothing but some pretty mountain views of the collision between fall and winter.



This area of Gifu is known has 'Hida,' and one of it's numerous claims to fame is delicious beef. Chieko and I were thinking save our extravegant Hida beef feast until our second night, but we set off downtown any ways to find something to eat and have a few drinks. Granted it was a Wednesday night, but downtown Takayama was surprisingly dead for it being only around 8 p.m. A lot of shops and restaurants had already packed it in for the day, and the streets themselves were pretty devoid of human activity. It was OK though since we had the streets mainly to ourselves to stroll around in the snow flurries. We succeeded in finding drinks, but the food we ended up with was rather disappointing, and that's when Chieko got sick.

It wasn't the food, but as soon as we got back to our hotel she started complaining of a scratchy throat. We turned in shortly thereafter, and she woke up in the middle of the night with a raging fever. And so it was that my poor wife remained in bed for the duration of our stay in quaint and lovely Takayama, while I roamed around downtown and saw some sites, ate my meals alone, and generally wished my partner in crime was not so banged up.

Her fever had broken by this morning but she was still in pretty lousy shape, so we checked out around ten this morning and high-tailed it back to Kanazawa.

But Takayama, I should note, is a great town, and we will be heading back again at some point to fully appreciate it's sites and tastes (never did get that Hida beef). The main highlight is the 'old town' area of downtown, where housed from the Edo period have been preserved. Some are private homes, others have been converted into shops, sake breweries, cafes, and other businesses. It's touristy but not overly so. The downtown is also quite condensed and it's very easy to wander away from the crowds and into the real neighborhoods, and also up into the mountains that are only about a 15 minute walk away. I covered a good deal on foot but didn't see half of what the town has to offer, so I look forward to getting back, maybe in a warmer part of the year. Here are some pics from in and around Takayama.









On the way out of town I caught this, which is a contender for 'Best Apartment Name in Japan.'



And lastly, a gratuitous rainbow pic from this afternoon, because that's how we roll in Kanazawa, still the best place I've found for nutty weather.