Friday 5th April

A bit warmer today at about 15 C.

Started out travelling north along the west coast near the Sea of Japan that separates Japan from Korea & China.

Stopped for a lunch break at 11.30 at a service station on the coast overlooking a small harbour under construction. One of the surprises to us was to see snow covered mountains a few kilometres east of our highway & also a yard full of snow ploughs. We had passed quite a few flooded fields, presumably for rice farming & as before, all flat land is utilized. The bus passed many large industrial sites amongst the fields & houses & we passed through Komatsu, which, I assume, is where the heavy earthmoving equipment is made.

Our first sightseeing stop was at the Kenrokuen Garden in Kanazawa. Set on a hillside opposite the castle, having been started in 1676 but extensively redesigned in the 1700s. Although it was built for the lord of the time as a private garden it was given over for public use in 1874 after the Meiji Revolution. It has some lovely lakes & timber buildings & is traversed by flowing, beautifully tended paths. As always in Japan, there were masses of local & foreign tourists but we did spot a couple having their wedding photos taken there in their traditional robes.

Back to the bus again we drove a bit further to see a Samurai House in the old part of the town. Again it was quite hard work pushing through the throng & although the house & garden were quite impressive it gave us very little insight into how they actually lived. What amazed d*** was the size of the floor boards, some of which, must have been at least 700mm in width, out of a very fine hardwood somewhat similar to Elm. The Samurai by the mid 19th century were virtually a class of high level beaureaucrats working for the state & were long past their warrior roles.

We moved on again towards the old 'Entertainment', red light, quarter & here walked the restored streets of wooden shops which now are restaurants & souvenir shops. There was a fine Shinto temple at one end which we visited & Jane made a fine job of calling the god after making a small offering, including a low bow. Wandering on we came to a small bell tower in another temple courtyard before returning to the bus.

This took us to our overnight hotel & we checked in before walking to the big rail station to have dinner. To find a restaurant we crossed the road under the station plaza & to our surprise, found a lady playing a fine grand piano at the intersection of various routes, totally alone in this huge area. On our return home after dinner we saw a man, also alone playing the same piano. Only in Japan could one find such an example of trust by all parties, the lady, the man & the grand piano all unprotected from vandalism or attack. This is a very ordered society, where people mind their own business & appear to always be courteous & thoughtful, how wonderful is that?

On our way back to the hotel we found a lovely little Shinto shrine with a statue of a man wearing a red hat.

Saturday 6th April

Today we drove south from Kanazawa into the mountains towards the snow to the village of Shirakawago, set in a valley well below the snow line. This village has been preserved as it was in the mid 1800s with its single gabled 2 storey, timber houses with steeply sloping, reed thatched roofs, set in a grid pattern amongst small fields edged with channels of fast flowing water passing through shallow ponds with huge carp in them. We arrived at about 9am & were on the 2nd bus in the car park. By the time we left, 2 hours later, we counted 20+ buses in 2 parks!

We were lucky enough to see thatchers working on one roof & also admired a fine temple in the village.

It must be hard for the locals having to put up with such an invasion every day.

We then moved on, on some very narrow & winding roads further south & east to Takayama, a town renowned foe its well preserved & restored old townscape. Here we visited Takayama Jinya, a branch office of the Edo government from 1692 to 1868. It is a large complex which really did illustrate life in this period when Japan was largely isolated from the world. It is the only place we have seen which showed how cooking was done & how the houses were heated by small charcoal braziers. They must have been miserably cold to live in for long periods of the year.

The complex also houses a large store house moved from another site, which showed how rice was stored & how the wooden roof shingles were made. A quite remarkable site.

Wandering on through the narrow streets & alleys we came across a new cultural complex museum, which covered many aspects of life in the town. This took us about an hour to see although less than half was labelled in Japanese unfortunately. We marveled at the care taken & the evident heavy, recent investment in the complex.

Leaving Takayama we moved across country & climbed above the snow line passing ski resorts, ski runs, & chairlifts on a very narrow, steep & winding road across horseshoe, hydro power, dams before descending to the plain again on the east side of the mountains, for our night stop in Nagano. It was a hard drive for all of us.