Takayama

Takayama is a town of less than seventy thousand people in the mountains between Kyoto and Tokyo. It is well-known for the traditional houses that lines many of its streets. And as always, there are many temples and shrines to see. We took the shinkensen from Hiroshima to Nagoya, then took a local express train - packed with both foreign and Japanese tourists - from Nagoya to Takayama.

A traditional-style house with a thatch ball hanging over the doorway.

We particularly wanted to go to Shirakawa-go, another World Heritage Site, to see the old traditional houses with thatched roofs. This village is about an hour by bus from Takayama, but we opted instead to rent a car for a day and drive ourselves there. It was much cheaper to rent a car for twelve hours than pay for four bus tickets. In addition, a car gave us much more freedom.

We were a little apprehensive about driving in Japan, mainly due to the fact that they drive on the left side of the road. But with three backseat drivers, David had no problem staying on the right (correct) side of the road. Besides, David is a graduate of the Sicilian driving school, so he had no problem dealing with the polite Japanese drivers.

To avoid the winding mountain roads, we took a toll road from Takayama to Shirogawa. It went through many long tunnels, the longest of which was 11 kilometers long. The toll was pretty expensive but probably worth it. With the help of many maps and the car's built-in GPS navigation system, plus David reading the kanji on the road signs, we managed pretty well.

Shirokawa turned out to be beautiful: a town made up of a mixture of thatched-roof and regular houses. There were many rice fields and a few vegetable gardens between the houses. We went into one thatched roof house that was like a museum, with traditional farm equipment and silkworm-raising bins on display.

Alice and Philip got a kick out of the offering plaques in front of one shrine. For some unknown reason, nearly all of the plaques had drawings of anime characters on them. We weren't the only ones who found this unusual: we saw two Japanese tourists taking pictures of the individual boards with their cellphones.

Thatched-roof houses across a green rice field.

Prayer plaques with anime drawings.