The morning started with a light drizzle which turned into a steady downpour by mid-afternoon. The streets were full of us crazy tourists walking around the old town with umbrellas and wet shoes.
Takayama is an old castle town; the castle no longer exists but models in the museum depict the structures which sat high on the hill. The townspeople and businesses lived in what has now been preserved as the “old town”.
The morning market has only a few booths this rainy morning so we continue on our walk to the Museum of History and Art, a large building with 16 small rooms each containing exhibits related to Takayama’s cultural arts. Hida carpentry is an ancient craft of this area and there are many wood sculptures on display. Hida is the center of Japan’s timber producing region.
The highlight of Takayama is the Festival Float Exhibition Hall or Takayama Matsuri Yatai Kaikan, a UNESCO site. The festivals are regarded as one of three most beautiful festivals in Japan, and magnificent floats which date from the 17th century, are paraded through the streets at night, 12 for the spring festival and 11 for the autumn festival. 4-5 floats are displayed in the exhibition hall at a time, and interchanged every 3 months. Lanterns are hung around the floats to light them up. Each float can weigh around 2 tons and are pulled by upwards of 80 people. The lead float has no wheels, others have 3 or 4 wheels. Men dressed in blue robes are in front pulling, and men dressed in gray are in back pushing.
The Sakurayama Hachiman Shrine looks down over the exhibition hall.
We walked back to the hotel through a downpour and stayed in until evening. Yesterday, the popular restaurant Suzuya was fully booked. Today we were able to get in after a 30 min wait in line. The inside is lively and bustling. It was well worth the wait. We had picked radish, mountain vegetables with miso paste on a Hoda leaf (magnolia) cooked over a flame, Hida beef which we grilled over a small charcoal grill, and a small hotpot of miso soup and mountain vegetables. It was one of the best meals we have had in Japan and at a good price. We also enjoyed having so many vegetables, sorely lacking in most restaurants we have been to so far.
In the gift shops we see a lot of dolls oddly without faces. We learned they are called Sarubobo, originally made during WW II, they are souvenirs of Takayama now. There are several explanations-no faces because the owner’s emotions can be reflected, or they were made by mothers during the war and faces were too sad to be reflected.
