Japanese Alpine Villages

On the morning of October 30, we visited the morning market in Takayama.  I was impressed with all those people out in their stalls so early on that cold morning.  It was fun and enjoyable looking at the wares in each stall.

This is the river in Takayama which we crossed and along which the market is held.

As we were walking through the market area, I stopped to take a picture and this guy posed for the picture.

This nice guy stopped and posed, too.  

Pretty bunch of peppers.

Lots of  little shrines like this all over the city

Interesting scene along the market route

That is our guest house there in the center with the big tree in front of it.

A closer look at the guest house

Eva reading the sign about this amazing tree!

The sign about the tree

The temple that is across from the Ginkgo tree

People use these ladles to purify themselves before visiting a temple.  

          Eva and Fernando by a tent full of Chrysanthemums.

In the afternoon, we left Takayama and took a bus to a World Heritage Site in Shirakawa-go called Ogimachi.

On the road to Shirakawa-go

This is taken from Japanguide.com:  The Shirakawa-go and neighboring Gokayama regions line the Shogawa River Valley in the remote mountains that span from Gifu to Toyama Prefectures. Declared a UNESCO world heritage site in 1995, they are famous for their traditional gassho-zukuri farmhouses, some of which are more than 250 years old.
Gassho-zukuri means "constructed like hands in prayer", as the farmhouses' steep thatched roofs resemble the hands of Buddhist monks pressed together in prayer. The architectural style developed over many generations and is designed to withstand the large amounts of heavy snow that falls in the region during winter. The roofs, made without nails, provided a large attic space used for cultivating silkworms.

Crossing the river in Ogimachi Village. What a lovely little village this is!

The roofs on these homes are amazing.

Those are gourds - one hanging from the center of the roof and one lower down by the porch

Nice rice field by this home.

By the time we needed to catch the next bus to another village called Ainokura (where we'll be spending the night), the sky had clouded over and it had started to rain and gotten colder.  We walked to the bus stop, not exactly sure where it was but we finally figured it out.  We were able to wait under a roof for the bus which was nice since it was raining.  It was about a 45 minute bus ride to Ainokura.  The bus dropped us off along the highway and we walked the short distance into Ainokura.  We found the house we'd be staying in and dropped off all our stuff and then enjoyed a nice hot green tea there.  Then we did some walking around the village.  We walked up to an overlook, we visited a cultural and industrial museum and did some more exploring of the area.

These are pictures of the village of Ainokura.

 Then we walked back to the house and waited for dinner.  We saw that they had started preparing some of our dinner!

Our delicious and amazing dinner that evening!  That fish was delicious!

It's a nice little village and we are so glad we spent a night there!

October 31, we left Ainokura.  We walked back out to the highway to catch a bus back to Ogimachi.  It was a nice bus ride back through the mountainous countryside.  Just loved it.  Back in Ogimachi, we visited other places in the village that we didn't see the first time we were there.  We enjoyed good noodle soups in a little restaurant and then later a delicious green tea ice cream!

Interesting watching this couple get their peppers up to the second floor.  She would place them in the basket and then use the pulley to lift them up to him.

Fernando and Eva standing along the river, people crossing the bridge in the background.

Then it was time to take a bus back to Takayama and we stayed in the same little guest house we had stayed in before.  We enjoyed some hot tea before heading out again to go through a section of the city that has a lot of temples.

Starting out on the road to the temples.  This was a very nice street which had a canal between the two lanes.  The trees along the street - some of them were just stunning.

Here's the canal between the streets.

Nice garden in one of the temples.

Really nice wood carving at the entrance to one of the temples.

 My goodness the trees were beautiful along this little path.

Fall trees don't get much prettier than this!

We passed by a Chrysanthemum garden as we were leaving the temples for the day.

We did a little shopping in some shops as we slowly made our way back to our guest house.  Then it was time for dinner in the guest house!  We just loved the meals that we had each evening.