17.8.2018 – Day 2 – Shirakawa-go

Today was to be great from the beginning. I had bought a guided tour of Shirakawa-go (an UNESCO site, I went to two villages, the main Ogimachi and Ainokura villages). The bus pick-up point was just opposite of my hotel so I got breakfast and had a short walk to the meeting point. With me there was also a couple from Belgium, a couple from Tokyo and a mother and daughter from Tokyo. We talked a lot on the way and had an amazing time.

Soon as we departed the sight started to change and our sights feasted on beautiful gorges and hills. Soon after our first shopping/bathroom break we were off to white road, which is a mountain toll road in the Hakusan National Park (Hakusan is a dominant volcano of this area, it has supposedly similar type of reverence as Fujisan.). Sadly the clouds obstructed a view on Hakusan, but we got to see beautiful valleys and waterfalls (Fukube Great Waterfall was a great stop).

As we passed into Gife prefecture through a tunnel the drive commented that soon we will learn why they call it the white road. As we exited the cloud was pressed against the mountain so there was a thick fog, obstructing view. But we did saw a snow remnant at the side of the road. I know that this is part of an area called snow country, which tops the ranks of most snowfall on Earth, but I did not expect to see snow at this time of the year. Continuing we saw monkeys crossing the street and soon after we arrived at the main village (the one you usually see on the pictures).

We had a great lunch at the local onsen and then we were let loose to explore the place to our liking. By chance I cough the last seat on a shuttle to the viewing terrace from where the famous village pictures are being taken. After I had enough picture I walked back down and started exploring the town and houses. I saw silk worms, which were the main focus of most houses here, eating away on leaves and the insides of the intricate houses. Fun fact, when the house roof needs to be re-done (every few decades), the entire neighborhood comes together (after the family head makes personal visit to all the other families) and they fix the entire roof. This requires over 100 people, so today people across Japan show up to help. The family records the name of everyone who came to help for safe keeping and future reference.

My final stop was the local shrine with insanely tall trees. I got attracted to the sound of shrine instruments and visited the museum of local festival. The festival is a prayer for good harvest and centers around a special local sake that is only allowed to be done here. It is white and still has parts of rice remaining in it. At the end of the museum you get a chance to try. I tried and I have to say that I liked the local part, but I still have a strong dislike of the taste of alcohol which ruined it for me. Sadly then it was time to go, but this leaves me still things to visit and a reason to come again here.

Ainokura village was our next stop. Since it was less crowded by tourist it was a relaxing stop. We went up to the viewing spot to take pictures and then strolled the town. For those who want there is an option to make Japanese paper in one of the huts, but I didn’t had time for that as I was busy exploring the town.

Our last stop was a rice factory/shop which makes rice cakes and crackers. First we got to bake our rice cakes (a bit similar to how you do it with marshmallows) under the professional guide of our bus driver and then got to try race crackers in the shop. Our guide and bus driver like the shrimp rice crackers the most and I do have to agree that they are great, but since I had a lemon drink the ginger rice cracker was the winner for me. What I like about these that certain variants taste the same as potato chips or other similar products, but rice crackers are probably much healthier. Needless to say that I got a supply to chum on while on train and to share.

Arriving back to Kanazawa I rested a bit in a hotel before going to look for Gas Shrimp which the tour guide recommended to me as a local specialty. I couldn’t find any dish claiming to be local specialty at Omicho market (but I can’t read Japanese so maybe I missed it), so I settled for shrimp tempura with Soba noodles.

After dinner my goal was to see the lightened castle walls performance which is only played on Friday and Saturday, so I departed for the castle. Maybe I was too hyped for this, but that was a bit of a let down. It was nice and relaxing, but I guess I was hoping for it to be a bit longer. As I was coming for the performance I could hear in the distance the sound of Matsuri (festival), so I went ahead to see what was going on. Apparently there was a small festival held by the culture institute featuring a female chorus singing the dancing songs and group of elderly dancers guiding people on how to dance. All of them in beautiful Yukata’s (as were some onlookers).

As I stayed for part 2, there were introductions of the singers. What struck me the most was that most of them were siters from the same family. Although that is my conjecture and I could be wrong as there were some common surnames like Honda, but I doubt it. I think this has to do a lot with following family traditions.

Once I had soaked up the atmosphere of the singing, dancing, the stalls with games for kids and teenagers to enjoy and obviously food (ever heard of the American Long Potato?), I went back to the hotel for a nice stay in the Onsen. Seriously why don’t we have this at home, it is amazing!