Takayama: What We Loved

We are on a train again, having left Takayama. Time seemed to both slow down and speed up while we were there, we are still not really clear on how we spent 9 days. We did a lot of walking, reading, eating, talking, and wandering about. But also, a lot happened while we were there.

So we pass the phone around on the train out of town and see what we remember:

JT: The music that plays every day at 5pm to celebrate people coming home from work. It sounds a little like Auld Lang Syne. And the man who wears a uniform, looks like a city worker, and walks through the streets every evening with a headset, chanting and keeping time with wooden rhythm sticks.

DO: Walking through the grounds of the 10 or so temples arrayed on the knees of the hills above the town. A 20meter walk from our AirBnB and you are on a stone path passing through tiny temple compounds : still bells waiting to be rung, deep curved eaves dripping, umber stained stones - huge and silent as much buddhas themselves as the lichen covered statues nearby. And all of it feeling very neighborhood-y with no tourists and workers taking a break from repairing a roof. But quiet and still and perfect for a stroll.

WM: The house

Our house was a small set of three rooms. One: The kitchen. You just walked into the kitchen! It is shaped like a deformed slice of pizza. On the left wall there is the fridge, the microwave, the sink, the toaster and the washing machine. One wall. All of that stuff. The room is about the size of your usual bathroom. Bathroom? Well yes, the shower is in the kitchen too! So once you have turned slowly in one spot and see every inch of the kitchen, you must walk forward and through the little door that is right in front of you. The next room is about the half the size of the kitchen and there is a small table that is 2 feet off of the ground, and a cabinet which houses all of the dishes.

Ok so now you half to slide the to Japanese looking doors in front of you apart to get to the bedroom. It is the biggest room in the house with a main area with all of our mattress beds in a line. My bed was actually placed against the right wall by the door, because my parents wanted to have their beds close to each other. That sounds absolutely reasonable to all you adults doesn't it? Well, since they wanted that I was kicked off to the side with my little head right next to the window. The window, being my only companion during the night, decided that it was going to cheer me up by blowing a freezing current of air onto my head to give me good dreams.

Anyway, there was also a little table, a couch and a porch in that room as well. Now, you might be wondering where the bathroom is. The shower was in the kitchen but where is the toilet? Well my dear, the toilet was in the freaking garage! Yes, if you happened to need to use the bathroom and you were all cuddled up watching a very riveting TV show. You had to get up, walk outside, put on shoes, cross the cold garage and then find yourself at a tiny little bathroom. Yay!

JT: The octopus dumpling lady who has a stall in the morning market by the bridge, near the willow. She's there every morning, cooking little custard balls filled with diced octopus and topped with tuna flakes. She turns them round and round very fast in a heated pan with little half-sphere molds, using two thin bamboo sticks. She turns them so fast that they brown evenly and look like little octopus cream puffs. Good to eat in the chilly rain. 3 for 200 yen. Careful, they're hot.

DO: Sitting at the ancient Ohte Gate in the park above our place and reading Shakespeare's sonnets as part of 'roadschooling'.

WM: The Sento right next to our house. You can sit in a hot pool of water in a steaming pool full of nice Japanese ladies after a long walk in the cold. Very nice.

JT: The statues on the bridge. One goofy guy with long legs, one surly mug with long arms, on either side of the bridge. Turns out they are from a local folktale about Long Legs and Long Arms who have to learn to fish together or they will both starve. Long Arms rides on Long Legs shoulders, so they can both wade in and grab fish out of the river. They bear a striking resemblance to Dave and I.

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DO: Working and relaxing the body: running and tree climbing and scrambling in the park, daily long walks around town in preparation for our pilgrimage in Shikoku, the local climbing gym where I met so many nice people and kids, and cold immersion at dawn in the stream below the AirBnB and hot soaks before bed in the sauna sento attached to our rooms.

WM: The colored bridges. Most of the bridges in Takayama were grey stone, but two of them were painted and more decorative. One was green and one was red. They were beautiful and they really helped you find where you were in the town's twisted streets.

JT: The Forest of the Seven Lucky Gods. Already mentioned in another post, seven huge a beautiful wooden sculptures of the Lucky Gods, housed in Edo period wooden granaries up on a snowy wooden hillside. Carved out of wood from thousand year old trees. Gigantic! Beautiful. You can scramble up and touch them and leave coins. They are like great benevolent spirits relaxing in a semi-deserted snowy tourist stop. We loved them.

DO: In the Japanese Alps and the bright blue with the clean smell of snow when we got the news about Moey.

Moey. Moey. Moey. May her memory be a blessing.

WM: Little porch, if you wanted to get away from the rest of the family for just a bit you could simply step out into the tiny porch that was surrounded by bushes and relax.

JT: The great cute amazing Takayama restaurants will be a separate post, so I'll just thank the little cafes. Cafe Don, with itty bitty cream pitchers where WM wrote a climactic moment of her book, Soeur where you can look at the koi in the river, the Courier which will tell you everything about hiking and give you herb tea, the Traveller where the baristas are so nice you can't believe it, and the Starbucks where they give you a tray, and WM wrote her free-verse poem.

DO: The exquisite urban planning that results quality of life: little garden plots and even small crop fields in and amongst houses and businesses, water visible/audible everywhere, ubiquitous solar panels, trees cared for so as to resemble sculpture, right sized cars, grandparents picking up grandkids at school.

JT: The park, big leafy cedars and clearly marked walking trails. The lady with colored pinwheels stuck in her front door. The babbling little river outside our window. Old Edo-period wooden streets with spheres of cedar fronds hanging of the Saki shops. Rice balls in miso in the corner stalls. And the statue of the Bodhisattva Jizo holding a baby and wearing a large hat that is in one of the temples above our house. He protects the spirits of children as well as travelers. That's where I said prayers for Moey. People also leave candy and toys at his feet.

Thanks, Takayama.

Now the trip changes as we go south to Shikoku and 8 days of walking with a group on the 88 temple pilgrimage trail.

We walk in honor of Moey's life. More soon. Miss you.