Winter Vacation - Takayama

Winter vacation started on Christmas Day and went for about two weeks. Ross and I had planned a trip to Takayama for four days, a chance to see part of rural Japan, relax and (hopefully) see snow fall. Takayama is a mountain town in Gifu Prefecture and is known as 'little Kyoto'. It reminded me of Ballarat, a big small town, with lots of old stores, little laneways and great shopping. Takayama is famous for its festivals held twice a year in Spring and Autumn, but is also known for its incredible cold climate, fabulous views of the Japanese Alps and the nearby hot springs. We left the morning after Christmas and took several local trains (lots of complicated switching but a very inexpensive way to go!) to get there. We were hoping the whole time for there to be snow, but students had told us to be wary that with all the climate change confusion, there may not be. :( About an hour from Osaka we hit Maibara, a mountain town just out of Kyoto. Looking out the window Ross noticed some small white flakes, very few of them floating in the air outside the train and said 'SNOW'. It was seriously an amazing sight - really exciting for us Aussies. As our train kept going we passed through town after town that was lightly blanketed in snow and we couldn't help ourselves; jumping out of the train quickly as it stopped to take our first snow photos! When we headed out of this region there was no snow, so again we were worried about Takayama. We accidentally took a wrong train and had to backtrack, making ourselves about an hour and a half later, and since in Winter the sun has been setting at five, we arrived in Takayama in pitch black darkness..............and SNOW> The entire town was thicky coated in snow that fell all over us and our luggage as we trundled through the town searching for our inn. We stayed in a really cute old Japanese inn with lovely hosts. It was a lovely, old fashioned, cosy place with fabulous food and an amazing old Japanese fireplace. We had organised to eat dinner the first night at the inn, mainly because of my error in judgment for our Shodoshima trip, where we ended up walking for 3km to find food. It was such a desperate situation that we planned ahead this time! The inn food also promised the famous Hida Beef from the region so we HAD to try it! It was a great meal and while we decided we wanted to try eating at other local restaurants in the area so we could try all the 'famous foods', we ended up booking in for breakfast each day. In our time in Japan, we have learned that each area is 'famous' for something, usually food. When talking with students at ECC, if we mention an area we've travelled to, they usually scratch their head, look thoughtful and say 'Ah, famous for.....' The 'famous fors' end up being anything from Kobe beef to Hokkaido rockmelons. But the Japanese are incredibly well trained - famous foods are known by everyone and in order to taste them you actually have to go to the area. They cannot be bought anywhere else. It's ridiculous. But fun. :) We settled into our room then headed out to take photos and play in the snow. It was hilarious walking in knee deep snow but i had bought $12 gumboots specifically for this and they were not going to waste. It must have been hilarious for the Japanese passersby, two westerners going out of their way to walk in the piles of snow on the side of the road. Japanese snow is difficult to ignore though - its as soft and fluffy and clean as the stuff of cartoons. We loved it. Our first day in Takayama we headed to the Hida no Sato old village area, a fifteen minute walk from our inn that took us about three hours. At first we responsibly walked along the roadside, but were quickly drawn in by the snow off the beaten track! This was a more confusing route since we couldn't tell what was road, what was garden, what was rice field (yes, I did fall in - thank goodness for gumboots- my new slogan; I'm going to make bumper stickers if you're interested), what was a path, what was a gutter, what was a private property such as an inn where monks hosted you, welcomed you and lead you to your room (whoops Ross) and what was the actual Hida no Sato. I kept referring to the map I had, exclaiming 'We're here' then realising we were still just in the streets of Takayama. Snow can be very confusing. We ended up hiking in what we have now come to call 'Narnia' where a forest was coated in incredibly beautiful, deep white snow. Finally we ended up at the Hida no Sato old village where we toured old farmhouses and read about life in a Japanese snow village - kind of like Sovereign Hill in Ballarat, I guess; a whole lot of restored buildings are arranged so that you can walk through them, like an old village. It was a lovely place to visit and really, really interesting. The second day was spent meandering through 'the old town', the section of Takayama city that sits on one side of a huge river canal where all of the old buildings are preserved and even the convenience stores are made to look old and authentic. :) We walked in the falling snow to the market outside the temple where local wares, fresh fruit, and New Years food was on sale. We ate orchard apples and wandered through the town soaking up the atmosphere and freezing our bums off! We warmed up with coffee in a cute cafe, wandered through some cute stores and ate food from street vendors before heading to a craft centre where we could make our own souvenirs. Ross made a snow globe (apprently a childhood dream) and I painted a mug which initially seemed like a great idea...I guess we'll see when the horrid-piece-of-crappiness-that-was-ridiculously-difficult-to-paint-an intricate-snowflake-pattern-on-after-all-who'd-have-thought arrives in the mail in a month's time. The third day was a bit of a bummer in that Ross had somehow pulled his neck and back out (couldn't possibly have been the futons on the floor and the rice pillows we slept on, could it?!) so we decided to seek out an onsen hot spring near the inn so that we could relax and Ross could recuperate. We read in a touristy booklet (which until this point had been very reliable) that the Kur Alp Hot Spring in the mountains overlooking Takayama was a great place to soak in a natural hot spring while overlooking the Japanese Alps. Despite Ross' head tilting to one side in a very embarassing way and my own head tilting similarly and sympathetically, we hiked up the mountain to Kur Alp. I feel that the tacky Swiss inspired name of the place should have tipped us off to the quality of the establishment, or perhaps the stifled laughter of the storekeepers we asked for directions...but at that point 'Old Leany' (as I had come to cruelly call my husband) and I were quite dedicated to Kur Alp and we pressed on. When we arrived and immediately recognised a place frighteningly similar to Ringwood Pool we still weren't going to give up, so ten minutes later we emerged from the change rooms wearing our hired swimming costumes: me in a very highcut racing suit and Ross in an incredibly tight pair of ancient greying mauve swimming trunks that may have been a deep shade of purple back in the eighties. We had hiked a considerable distance to go to a chlorinated local pool with a view of the alps...that was blocked my a very larke blue concrete wall and foggy, dirty windows. Hilarious...now. Horrendous at the time! We hiked back into town after valiantly trying to enjoy ourselves only to discover that directly opposite our inn was a very large, very luxurious natural hot spring. We used their free foot bath (an odd experience as it really felt as though we were a pair of idiotic foreigners sitting in the decorative rock pool at the front of the hotel until some Japanese people joined us) then we entered the hot spring and basked in the natural heat while the snow surrounded us. Beautiful. We headed home from Takayama as the snow stopped falling and began to melt, and when we asked about how long Takayama had had snow, we found out it had started the night before we arrived. Lucky us. :)

Christmas Day

Lots have people have been curious about how we 'did' Christmas this year. I guess Japan is a bit of a mystery to people in many ways and it makes sense that they would, of course, celebrate differently to us... particularly when it comes to things like Western Christian holidays and traditions.....but no'one seems to have told Japan that. You see, Japan celebrates Christmas in a more obvious and exquisite and extreme (and expensive) way than Australia seems to! Japan began celebrating Christmas a bit later than Australia, but still early enough for mass marketing to get to the people. It seemed to start in mid November with lots of advertising for the light up events that I attended and mentioned in my previous blog entry. In addition, stores (especially the massive department stores) started to promote Christmas presents and Christmas sales and gorgeous trees and decorations sprouted up all over the city. Even Juso got in on the action. A huge (and extremely ugly) tree was put up on a vacant lot near the post office care of some big corporation, the small naked urinating baby statue by the station wore a smal fluffy santa coat, and our dear little red light district 'Sakaemachi' was decorated with three Christmas trees and a very old Japanese man standing outside the stripper pubs looking rather disheveled in a Santa suit. Ahh, Christmas! It was actually lots of fun to organise and experience Christmas in Japan this year. Present here are beautifully and artfully wrapped all year round, and Japan is a gift giving nation so there were boundless present ideas available. I bought lots of special cakes and desserts and little gifts to send to family and friends back home and bought little bits and pieces for friends we're made here too. I also had the thrill of collecting packages from home on my bicycle! It was really fun, but ridiculously busy. Japanese people get really excited about Christmas, going so far as to eat a pseudo Japanese French Christmas dinner at one of the many hotels offering it, and every family (or so it seems) orders in advance a specially decorated Christmas cake. This is usually something like a vanilla or chocolate sponge cake with fresh cream and lots of ridiculous decorations. You can even order one with four different types of cake, two slices of each, artfully arranged to look like one big cake. Incredible. It seems also that someone awhile back told the Japanese people that on Christmas, Westerners do two things. 1)Eat Christmas Baumkuchen (a German style rolled sponge cake that is apprently worth lining up for two hours to purchase, even if you preordered it) and 2)Go toKFC. Yes folks, the same Japanese that are still three years on lining up for 203 hours to try Krispy Kreme, the same Japanese that will ordinarily line up for approximately 20minutes to eat Belgian waffles, the same Japanese who have recently been the victims of extreme marketing on behalf of McDonalds and their new 'Quarter Pounder' stores (yes, the only thing on the menu is a Quarter Pounder - read more here: http://inventorspot.com/articles/mcdonalds_japan_goes_nobrand_with_quarter_pounder_shops_19505), these same Japanese line up for hours on cold wintery Christmas to purchase an authentic KFC Christmas Dinner. Incredible. In addition to the madness, Japan offers a pretty amazing Christmas - plenty of fabulous outdoor events, amazing shopping and great food. So this year, because Ross and i weren't heading on our winter vacation until Boxing Day (the 26th Dec), we decided to host Christmas at home. Earlier in the year, we had heard that most of our friends here in Japan would be heading back home for Chrissy so we organised a small lunch with people who we knew had no plans and would be lonely. :( We invited our friends KJ and Rachel (from Jersey), Chris and Leigh (from Virginia) and a good friend of Leigh's, a British girl who teaches yoga here; Ursula. We divided up the meal and Ross and I were assigned desserts, chocolates and decorating. Excellent. This meant i was able to choose delicious food from the department stores here, share the fabulous Aussie Christmas food mum had sent over, and watch the Japanese line up for a ridiculous amount of time just to buy 'THE cake'. Perfect all round. Poor Rachel got really sick the week of Christmas, and having signed herself up for 'main meal' duty found herself hiking out to the giant Costco warehouse a few suburbs over to buy Roast Chickens on Christmas Eve. She reported back that she was glad she was so sick when she took this journey as when she arrived at Costco she was cranky and sick and able to harness this negative energy enough to fight the Japanese people for the last two chickens on the shelf. Excellent. Despite giving Chris and Leigh (who are wonderful people but also notoriously late!) the responsibility of bringing the snacks and starters (thereby pushing the start time to much later in the day - we love you Chris and Leigh! :)), everything went off without a hitch and we had one of the loveliest Christmases ever, despite being so far from home. It was a wonderful day of good food and wonderful company.

Three light ups and a baby...

December began with the highly anticipated arrival of Rumi's (tiny) baby 'Cocomi'. Rumi waited through the end of November and ended up being induced in the most beautiful, lacy, floral women's clinic (with the most fabulous desserts I've ever seen) on the first of December. We had the chance to head out towards Minoh to visit the tiny little darling and her mother. Cocomi is lovely. We wish the whole family well. :) xoxo December has also been ful of ample opportunities to see 'Lightups'. In Japan, fireworks and light ups seem to be very popular, the former take place in the heat of summer while the latter are all about Christmas and the New Year. What's so special about a 'light up'? Well, thousands of Japanese people (and foolish foreigners who are willing to put up with crowds) load onto trains and head to specific areas which are lit up with all sorts of things - Christmas lights, handmade lanterns, golden archways flown in from France to commemorate the rebuilding of Kobe post Earthquake..... The lightups are gorgeous and crowded and usually worth the trip - though the Nakanoshima ones were a little disappointing, especially since I couldn't get the timing right on the camera to catch that special aqua light that kept flashing on. :) I got a little obsessive. So, in December we started with Illuminarie, which I was lucky enough to go to with Yoshimi ten years ago on my first Japan trip, and desperately wanted to take Ross to. We took KJ and Rachel too and despite awful weather during the night, we were treated to a rain free evening, depleted crowds and awesome coffee and biscuits. The second light up we went to was in Arashiyama. We've been to Arashiyama a few times now; it's a beautiful area of riverside country town in Kyoto, just out of the city. The last time we visited was with Brent and Sam and on that occasion we specifically waited until nightfall so we could see the Bamboo forest lit up, as we'd seen on lots of posters and postcards. Unfortunately, we discovered that the forest isn't actually lit up on a regular basis. Unlucky for Sam and Brent but lucky for us, we read that the Bamboo Forest and surrounding streets of Arashiyama were to be lit up in December. So we headed there, in memory of Sam and Brent. :) The streets were lined with handmade lanterns (s0me better than others, though I'm going to try not to be critical since i think they were made by local Primary school students) and the forest itself was lit with both white/purpley lights and normal lighting so it had a natural and also an eery glow. It was breathtakingly beautiful. On posters advertising the light up it had said the event would take place until 8.30...midway through the forest I mused 'How do you think they end an event like this?' and I got my answer when right on 8/30 they simply switched off all the lighting in the forest and left us all, deep in the forest in pitch black darkness. It was hilarious, especially with the young women screaming all around us! The third light up was in Nakanoshima area, where Yoshimi lives and came strongly recommended by her. Basically, Nakanoshima is a central business area so wealthy companies sponsored Christmas lights to flash and look pretty and a boat lit up to look like Santa and a sleigh with reindeer to cruise the harbour area. When we were paid a visit in Osaka by the lovely Bex and Matt Ooi, we took them out for the day in Osaka, ate good local food, played Pachinko (a long awaited dream) and took in the lights.