Hida Takayama, Day One

The city of Hida Takayama plays hosts every year to two of the biggest festivals in Japan. Together, they count as one of the top three festivals in Japan. I decided that, despite the distance, I would go and check it out. I had little warning that it would happen at all, so there was no time to find a hotel. According to the guides, over 100,000 people descend on this city of 60-70k for the festival. For some background on the festival, please visit this website.

I invited all of my friends to come, but Meriel and Jason were going to Tokyo and Chris was broke as usual or had some other excuse, so on the morning of the event I woke up early and got to Marisa's place around 8. Together we headed off. The first 2.5 hours or so were on the Chuo expressway - a toll road where you can actually drive fast legally! For me in my sports car, that ended up being 140km/h. Compare that to average speeds of around 35 mph on regular roads.

The 2nd half of the drive, another 2.5 hours, was on the road between Matsumoto (see Takayama and Matsumoto for day 2) and Takayama. I think the road has a special name, but I don't know what it is. It should have a special name, because it was totally gorgeous. Other than the hydro plants and dams that plague every valley, every 5 minutes there was a PO. Because we had no idea when the festival actually started, and because we shared the small road with 20,000 other cars and tour buses, we didn't stop at all on the way.

We got to Takayama and found a really sketchy parking lot behind an abandoned building next to the train station. I never would have gone near it in the States, but in Japan we felt safe enough that we parked it there. It was also 10 feet from a paid parking lot, and there were a couple of other cars there with us. We decided to leave it there and found out that the festival was actually at night (well, 7:30pm or so) so we had made it in time.

The center of Takayama is kind of touristy, but the heart of it is a section of really old buildings that you can see in my blurry pictures. Cool gates and lots of old wood. We tried a couple of nasty food items that I don't recommend (dango - a type of mochi grilled like the fish-on-a-stick and dunked in soy sauce.... way too salty. and a face-sized rice cake also dipped in shoyu that was way too salty. You might be able to tell from the pictures that there were a few other people there.

Anyway, we wandered around for a while checking out the touristy shops and watching Marisa try every candy sample... Oh yea. Whenever Japanese people go someplace, they buy omiyage to bring back to family and friends and colleagues. The teachers office in Hayakawa always has random snacks from random people and places. As an example, currently there are Kiwi's from the finances lady, Kasai-san, delicious apples from Inamura( the nurse) sensei's family, and some special famous mochi that someone's grandfather brought back from a trip to Kyoto. All towns (including Hayakawa and Minobu) have touristy shops that sell boxes of omiyage for people to take back. Like little Waikiki's, basically. Every shop in the center of Takayama was like that. BUT they had samples of all their treats, which was nice.

We had a quick dinner at a ramen shop (char siu ramen for the win...since they were out of my curry udon.) and then found a spot on the curb. The festival is a festival of "floats," although carts or wagons would be a better term, because they're pulled like carts. First, though, there was a lion dance. As it happened, the lion dance was directly in front of us and out of the 100,000 or however many people there we were some of the couple hundred who could watch it up close.

Next, the floats were brought out, and I apologize for the pictures but I can't take shots in the dark and they shut all the street lights off so we could appreciate the lanterns. Also, I was too close to get all of each float in. One amusing thing was that at the tops of all the carts/floats/whatever there were elementary school kids! Anyway, there were 6-10 unique floats (designated as national treasures) that we could get up close to and enjoy.

When all the floats were brought out the festival was basically over, so we headed back to check on our car. Everything was great there, so we pondered crashing but as it was only 9:30 and we really liked Takayama we went out looking for a bar or something. We ended up staying out until two, and had some interesting experiences.

The first place we hit was a really cute kinda local bar that specialized in sushi. I asked for some warm sake (which comes with the little bottle like in all the pictures) and we ordered some sashimi neither of us recognized at the recommendation of the owners wife. Then it happened.

We've discovered that it's pretty customary for bars to bring out some sort of appetizer that you haven't asked for and then charge you $3 or so for it. If you expect it, it's no big deal. Call it a cover charge. Well, this place brought out little bowls filled with... some pink gushy substance in a nasty looking sauce. Everyone was looking at us, so we reached in with our chopsticks and pulled out... a raw baby squid.

Now, where I'm from, that's absolutely disgusting. I'm in Japan, but that's still disgusting. Still, everyone was watching and I'll try anything once so we both ate it. There was a distinct and sickening crunch when you bit into the head. So gross! I ended up eating 5, and Marisa probably had 3. That was more disgusting than anything else I've had here.

(This journal is really long. I'm killing time until 4 when I can go home and take a nap... not much sleep lately.) We finished our drinks and sashimi (the sashimi was excellent) and headed out. Our next stop was a classy little bar with nice jazz music playing. I had another bottle of sake and we chatted up some of the other patrons while enjoying some snacks. We stayed there for a while... an hour maybe? Then left looking for a new spot. After all, nothing was open but the bars and it we were having fun.

We wandered around looking for a non-sketchy spot and ended up walking down a really dark, deserted street. We turned the corner onto another dark, deserted street and there, right in front of us, was a little, friendly yakitori stand. :) We bought beef-on-a-stick for a couple bucks and moved on. The next bar we ended up looked nice and clean. There were about 4 men sitting around the tables, and maybe 5 young female bartenders. We sat down, accepted their towels, sipped some water, and then were told by kinda embarassed young female bartenders that there was a $20 seating charge each. We were embarassed because we didn't want to pay but they had been nice so we left again.

Where to? Of course, the jazz bar again. what a great atmosphere. We ate and drank more, then left it for the last time. Finally, for our last stop, we ended up at a sushi place. Here, we embarassed ourselves as foreigners again. We ordered some sushi, and for some reason the three young male chefs were laughing at us. I asked them why they were laughing (maybe I had a little too much to drink?) and they just kinda giggled some more. We watched the people eating next to us with their fingers, putting the sushi directly on the wooden table. We couldn't bring ourselves to eat without the chopsticks. Also, we suspect that they spiked our sushi with twice as much wasabi as usual because they were really, really, hot.

With our stomaches bursting to the point of explosion, we headed back to the car and fell asleep there at around 2am. Of course, it was probably in the 40s so we were freezing. Which meant that every hour-and-a-half or so I would wake up, start the car, and drive back and forth behind the building. We really weren't sure if where we were parked was legal, and kinda suspected it wasn't, so we didn't want to drive around where the parking attendant at the paid lot 10 feet from us could see us. We laughed a lot, and drove back and forth until the engine had warmed up enough for the heater to work.

We woke up around 6-6:30, and the story will continue on the Takayama and Matsumoto page.