Sunday dawned in
Takayama. After breakfast at the Best Western I boarded the
Nohi bus to Shirakawa-go, which was another scenic ride, this one about an hour long.
In my original trip planning, I had hoped to stay at a gasshō-zukuri (合掌造り, literally "clasped-hands" style) inn in
Shirakawa-go. I don't remember where I first heard of this rustic village in the mountains where people still lived in thatched-roof A-frame farmhouses and ate around sunken hearths, but seeing photos like
this and
this convinced me this was a place I wanted to visit. The traditional inns in a village like this don't have online reservations, so the easiest way for a less-than-fluent foreigner like me to book a stay at them is to use a site like
Japanese Guest Houses that acts as an intermediary. That intermediation comes with a delay of about a day between when you request a room and when you get a response as to whether one's available at the inn you want. Possibly this wouldn't be a problem normally, but it turns out
Doburoku Matsuri, an annual festival involving unrefined sake, was taking place in Shirakawa-go October 14-19. I assume that's why I couldn't find a single vacant room in Shirakawa-go that weekend over the course of a week of back-and-forth with
Japanese Guest Houses. So I found another scenic village in the region with gasshō-zukuri houses. This one, called Ainokura (相倉), was a little smaller and more remote than Shirakawa-go, with the implication that it's also less tourist-choked. Ainokura was another bus ride beyond Shirakawa-go.
Once I got to Shirakawa-go, I had less than an hour to haul my heavy luggage from the Shirakawa-go bus stop up to the Ogimachi bus stop on the other side of the village, in order to catch the Kaetsuno bus to Ainokura. I muscled it up there in what turned out to be plenty of time. I was a little anxious waiting at the bus stop because it wasn't labeled (and there was no bench or shelter) and no one else was waiting there. Loads of private tour buses rumbled by, but when the appointed time arrived and the
Kaetsuno bus was nowhere to be seen, I was worried. Trains and buses (and people) in Japan are never late, are they? This one was running a few minutes late after all—maybe because it was raining—and I boarded it with a sense of relief. For much of the ride I was the sole passenger, though eventually a few more people got on. Since this was the first time for me riding a local bus on my own in Japan, I thank JapanesePod101.com's
Riding the Bus 1 and
Riding the Bus 2 lessons for explaining to me how it works and the phrases to use.
I got off the bus at Ainokura-guchi and spent several minutes wondering which way to walk from there. Once I figured it out, it was about a ten-minute walk from the bus stop to Ainokura with heavy luggage. Note to travelers: take advantage of Japan's good luggage-handling services, if you're making any side trip where you'll have to haul your luggage, and have the bulk of your luggage sent ahead to the place where you'll be spending most of your trip (in my case that would've been in Kyoto). It'll save you an awful lot of difficulty.
Once I got to the inn where I would be staying that night,
Goyomon, I entered with the expectation that at noon I was too early to check in. But this was a friendly place where "check-in time" is not a rule. I was shown to my tatami room, where the proprietress put my luggage before serving me tea and sweets in the main room by the
irori.
I had the whole afternoon to explore Ainokura. I walked up the side of the mountain to the
conjugal zelkova tree. I visited the
folk life museums in the village. I visited
Jinushi shrine. I photographed. I wandered. I visited a
gift shop, where I bought some grain soup mixes, a CD of traditional village folk music, some rustic sweets similar to the ones I'd been served by the proprietress at Goyomon,
kaishi embossed with a gasshō-zukuri design, and a cup of delicious
yuzu ice cream.
I returned to Goyomon where there was more tea. As trout roasted on sticks in the sunken hearth, a couple from
Hokkaido arrived to check in to another of the inn's rooms. They were very friendly; we chatted for a while. There are four guest rooms at Goyomon, so between me and the Hokkaido couple, the inn was operating at 50% of capacity. As usual for a Japanese home, there was no central heating, so the guest rooms each contained an electric heater to ward off the chill.
By this point I was satisfied that I'd seen most of the village and was a little tired, but there was time before dinner, so the proprietress generously drove me to
Kuroba Onsen, about twenty minutes away by car.
Mind you, I had never been to an
onsen before. I had been to
Spa World, a
Korean bathhouse here in the states, with some friends, so I had some experience being naked in a women-only bathhouse space. But this was in Japan, in a fairly remote area where I would be the only Westerner as well as completely on my own. This would not be a place catering to people new to the bathhouse experience and its particular etiquette. And from my understanding there is still some prejudice about foreigners being "dirty" and therefore undesirable at onsen. If that was the case here, it was too subtle for me to notice it. I paid my money at the front desk, disrobed in the women's changing room (I would call it a locker room but there were no lockers—yay for high-trust societies—only baskets on shelves), and entered the bathing area. I washed myself at one of the seated shower stations before entering the bath itself—that's probably the single most important point of etiquette/hygiene to know about Japanese and Korean bathhouses. I alternated between the indoor and outdoor baths, both of which were nearly empty of other patrons and thus quiet and relaxing. After an hour Goyomon's proprietress picked me up and drove me back to her inn.
Then dinner was served: koi-no-arai (fresh, raw carp), nameko-jiru (soup with nameko mushrooms), su-no-mono (mountain vegetables dressed with vinegar), kogomi no goma-ae (young fern with sesame paste), tempura, iwana-no-shioyaki (salt-grilled brook trout), ka-no-mono (pickles), and nimono (a simmered dish with Gokayama tofu, mushrooms, bamboo shoots, and wild vegetables), and probably some other dishes that have escaped my memory. It was delicious, of course, and there were so many courses that I was stuffed by the end of the evening. The couple from Hokkaido shared some traditional sweets they'd brought as a nontraditional end to the meal, while the proprietress demonstrated the playing of a
sasara, a traditional folk instrument. I'm surprised I didn't just fall asleep after that, but I stayed up a little while watching an ice-skating championship on TV that was of particular interest to the other guests. When I finally retired to my eight-tatami room, I slept soundly on a futon and a buckwheat chaff pillow.
Here are the pictures I took in Ainokura.I'd also like to point you to
Paul's Ainokura blog post. I don't know Paul, but he traveled to Ainokura about a year and a half ago and stayed at Goyomon, and his photos and description are excellent. If you're wondering what those dishes I described above look like, follow that link. I didn't see his writeup before my trip, but looking at it afterward I can say our experiences were very similar.
This entry was originally posted at http://bokunenjin.dreamwidth.org/1290.html.
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bokunenjin's journal
From around 11:30am to 1:30pm we watched the annual Jidai Matsuri parade from front-row seats on the grounds of the Imperial Palace. Here are my many photos. It was a treat to be able to see the parade from such a great vantage point.
Here's the tea ceremony stuff I bought, in the photo to the right. In the back are two secondhand kyō-yaki tea bowls, one with an ume design for early spring and the other with a kaede (green maple leaf) design for early autumn. At the same vendor I bought the red ceramic lid rest in front and the black lacquered natsume on the right, the gold design on which I don't recognize.
We wrapped up the day with a group dinner at Kushihachi, as on the last trip, and it was a blast. Here's a shot of their English menu. Fried food on a stick is a classic. Along with the popular items we tried a few of the seasonal ones: the chestnuts had a dessert-like sweetness, and the matsutake were good but probably best enjoyed with a subtler preparation. My favorites were shiitake and lotus root. We drank heartily and chuckled at the cryptic "pork tranklements" listed on the menu. I'd certainly recommend this place to any tourist visiting Kyoto.
This was the first day of the group tour part of my trip, and as we did last time we began by walking through Kyōto Gyoen (the grounds of the Imperial Palace in Kyoto), stopping at Nashinoki-jinja, and then along the Kamo River. Preparations were already underway for the two-days-hence Jidai Matsuri, which begins at the Imperial Palace and proceeds two kilometers through the streets to the Heian Shrine. Folding chairs for spectators were being set up in rows, and flora were being pruned even more diligently than usual. When one member of our group wondered if some strips of paper tied to nearby branches were omikuji, trip coordinator Nancy speculated that in this case they were more likely markers for specific branches that landscaping workers would trim.
We had a lunch reservation at Ganko Takasegawa Nijoen. As Kansai Food Page notes, "This sprawling building was once the private mansion of one of Kyoto's leading merchants, and its beautiful garden and riverfront setting make it a popular spot for parties and banquets." In a private room with a garden view, we were each served a casual kaiseki meal in a lacquered box with a drawer. The set meal included soup, sushi, grilled fish, tofu, pickled vegetables, yuba, a savory custard, maybe tamagoyaki... my memory has faded. Dessert was a fruit sorbet. After lunch we strolled in the aforementioned beautiful garden.
In the afternoon we headed to the Kyoto Museum of Traditional Crafts "Fureaikan". We breezed through the gallery to get to a demonstration on weaving, including ikat. I'd like to learn more about weaving—along with a thousand other things—but not knowing much about it yet, I didn't really understand what I was looking at, and there wasn't any English-language signage. It was easier to understand and enjoy the permanent exhibits on traditional handicrafts like lacquerware, dyeing, woodworking, and ceramics. These exhibits featured examples of finished works, looping videos of the craft-making, and in many cases examples of the work at various stages in its making. It was amazing to see the beauty that can result from the application of age-old techniques to simple materials by experienced craftspeople.
Whereas Sunday in Ainokura had been drizzy-to-rainy, when I awoke Monday sunlight streamed in through the shōji. Breakfast was relatively simple: rice and nori, variously prepared mountain vegetables, miso soup. I packed up and headed out to the bus stop, pausing along the way to photograph the village in this more flattering light. The tourist buses hadn't started arriving yet, so I had the place nearly to myself. When a survey-taker spotted me, I obliged by responding to questions about what attracted me to Ainokura and various demographic questions. I was proud that I could get along in Japanese at least well enough to respond to basic survey questions, even if I'm far from fluent. With a complimentary packet of tea in hand, I strolled down to the bus stop... and my spirits sank as I realized I was late for the bus to Shirakawa-go. I waited around for a little while just in case that bus was late, but no luck.
For me Takayama was just a stopping-over point on the way to an out-of-the-way village, but in the interest of not rushing around insanely I would spend the rest of the day and night in Takayama before venturing farther afield. A few weeks prior I had failed to find any available lodging in Takayama more exotic than Best Western, so once I got to town I dropped off my luggage there and headed eastward down Kokubunji Street, across the Miya River, and into the historic district. I bought some sashiko supplies and an umbrella to fend off the impending rain. Amid stands selling dango and aromatic senbei hot off the grill, souvenir shops peddled the town's well-known wooden crafts and sarubobos. Even though it was cool and rainy, I stopped by one of the snack stands for a soft-serve matcha ice cream, the first in a glorious line of soft-serve ice cream I would consume on this trip. :) After some more walking and browsing, I headed back to the hotel for a nap. In the evening I was feeling more hungry than discerning, so I plopped myself down at a little donburi joint in the neighborhood of the hotel for a bowl of ebidon, which turned out to be ebi katsudon. Back at the hotel, I sucked up the last of the Internet access I'd have for a few days—weeks if we're talking access from my own laptop—to e-mail T-mobile about my not-yet-finding-a-signal-in-Japan-as-pro