Hida Takayama

This past weekend, we had a great opportunity to visit the town of Hida Takayama. Mike, Josh and I participated in a monitor group for the city. Hida Takayama prides itself on being "barrier free", meaning that the town is stroller and wheelchair friendly. We also had a chance to invite our good friends Nathalie & Thomas with us, since they have 3 young children and make the perfect test subjects for traveling with strollers. The journey was long - about 5 hours to Takayama station. From Yokosuka, we took an express up to Yokohama station then transferred to Shin-Yokohama station to board the Shinkansen to Nagoya. From Nagoya we took a 2 hour "wide view" train ride to Hida Takayama. The ride from Nagoya to Takayama was beautiful and the "wide view" train provided extra large windows, enabling us to see the spectacular mountains and streams along the way.

When we arrived in Takayama, we were left to our own devises. Our tour "leader", Pete, wanted us monitors to do all the legwork on our own, so we could feel like "first timers" in Japan. Our first test was to find our ryokan (Japanese style hotel) and the tourist information booth at Takayama station provided excellent information - in English, I should add - to help us get there without a hitch. From the ryokan, we had lunch at a great recommended soba restaurant. Because of the cold weather, the hot soup tasted just "that much better"... the perfect fuel to start our trip.

But more about the ryokan... This was our first experience staying in a ryokan. The reason being that many ryokan aren't welcoming towards young children. It's sort of an unwritten rule that if traveling with children in Japan, you should stay in a hotel. Understandingly, because children have a tendency to be louder than the Average Joe and they are more inclinend to make Swiss Cheese out of shoji screens. However, Akiko Tanabe at the Tanabe Ryokan was very welcoming towards us and Josh and she really seemed to enjoy speaking to us in English, which she did quite well. We arrived too early to check in, but were able to leave our luggage there while we spent more time checking out the town.

We didn't realize it until we arrived, but we were soon to become celebrities. Part of the city's plan was for us to enjoy the town and then provide feedback. However, they also decided that it'd be the perfect opportunity for a local television crew to film us enjoying the town, to show other gaijin how easy it is to get around in Hida Takayama. Apparently, they are planning to use the footage in a nationwide commercial, so we're really hoping to get a copy of that tape!

The film crew took us to our first destination, Hida no Sato (Hida Folk Village), a very popular stop on the tourist trail. Here, we could step back in time and visit an old farming community, to see how many Japanese folks were living at the time. There are about 30 buildings in the village, and inside each one is an explanation of what type of home or building it was and why it was important to the people of the time. Also, in many of the buildings were people working hard on an "old folk craft" like Hida lacquer work, weaving and dyeing. After exploring the old folk village, we took a detour to a spot where we were able to cook traditional rice crackers in a kiln, inside a small craft shop in town. YUM!

That evening, Mike and Thomas met with the monitor group to give their opinions about the town. Nathalie and I decided to stay behind as 4 young children in a two hour meeting might get a little crazy. It was then that I had a chance to see the room where Nathalie and Thomas were staying. They stayed a the Hida Hotel Plaza, in one of the Japanese style rooms. It was beautiful, with tatami mat throughout. The hotel also had a swimming pool, shops and an onsen.

After the meeting, we were all treated to dinner at a yakiniku restaurant in downtown. This was also our first experience with yakiniku. Yakiniku is a do-it-yourself type of dinner. Guests are seated at a table with a hot pot/grill in the middle. A server will then present guests with a large platter of beef, noodles, and vegetables. It's customary to oil the pot with a cube of fat. Then the diners throw the meat in and pour their desired amount of sauce throughout. Guests are also given a raw egg which should be cracked open in a bowl and beat with chopsticks. Once meat is at desired doneness, it should be pulled out, dipped in egg and slurped down. Diners can add vegetables to the pot whenever and the noodles are suggested to be eaten last.

Hida Takayama is well known for it's high quality beef. The quality is thought to be second only to Kobe beef. It was delicious. I can't remember a time when we had such a great meal! The night kept going until Josh was basically falling asleep at the table. I excused myself and made it back to our ryokan. In our room was hot tea waiting and 3 large fluffy futons place out just ready for me to plop down on them. Before bed though, Josh and I made it to the bath downstairs, cleaned up and relaxed. We were supplied with a Yukata (Japanese PJs) and even Josh had his own. After soaking in the onsen we went back up to our room. I informed Josh that I was going to dry my hair and that he should lie down and wait for me. Upon my return I found him snoring, all snuggled under the covers. I slid in beside him and fell quickly asleep myself. Mike stayed out a little late that night, but returned around 11:30pm and then took a dip in the onsen before going to bed, too.

In typical ryokan fashion, we received breakfast delivered to our room. We had hot miso (fermented soybean paste VERY good for seasoning) sizzling on top of a magnolia leaf on a small stove, broiled salmon, rice, miso soup, nori (dried seaweed), hot tea, water, pickled vegetables, and a small yogurt drink. It was such a large breakfast, but shamefully we had no problem getting it all down. After our very filling breakfast it was time to get dressed and ready for a new day.

On the second day, it snowed some, but it was the slushy kind of snow that didn't stick to the ground but still made things wet. Our first stop was the morning market, where we were again videotaped while we went around asking questions of the vendors. Josh and I walked around and tried samples of the local produce, home pickled veggies, and Japanese sweet treats; including one that I had never had before - a sweet grilled egg white, which sounds really weird but turned out to be really good. Mike got an interesting tour of a sake brewery - ironically, the brewery was run by the same family that owned the ryokan where we were staying, the Tanabe family. We also had some more famous Hida beef served up Yakitori style. I guess you could say it was Yakiniku but instead of thin slices of beef like we had the night prior this was bite size chunks of beef served on a stick.

We viewed both marketplaces while the TV station crew taped us, then Nathalie, Mike and I took the children to Takayama Jinya, or historical government house. This was one of the properties of Lord Kanamori of Takayama Castle. Way back when, it came under the control of the Tokugawa Shogunate, and prefectural and district governors used it as an office through which to govern Hida; sending out official proclamations and collecting taxes. When the Meiji era began, it came to be used as area offices for the prefecture, county and local branches. Takayama Jinya is the only remaining building of this kind in the country. Takayama Jinya had a small lobby where we warmed up and enjoyed some hot drinks.

We spent the remainder of our time visiting the shops along the "old houses" portion of Hida Takayama, where we got an education in (and a sample of) the different types of sake brewed in town. We came away with three bottles of sake, each with distinct flavors and attributes. We also window shopped, tasted some local snacks, and froze our buns off until we were able to board our train home.

The train ride home was a lot more relaxing and instead of getting off at Yokohama station we took the Shinkansen all the way to Shinagawa. This gave us an opportunity to have a more straight shot home (Which I would recommend to anyone in our area planning on taking a Shinkansen trip).

We had a great weekend in Hida Takayama and would recommend the town to anyone looking for a change of scenery from the busy life of urban Japan megacities. It was fun to visit a new place, do new things, and to act like movie stars with video cameras following us everywhere. By the way, if you are reading this from Japan, be sure to check your television for our big international commercial debut sometime soon.