Holiday in Japan (5): Matsumoto & Takayama
Apparently, during our night in Matsumoto, about 1.15 am there was an earthquake of 2.6 on the Richter scale. For some of the group, the earth moved. I simply slept through it.
At 7.30 am, I had a call from Jenny wondering where I was. To be honest, I wondered where I was as well because I’d been fast asleep. It turned out that the alarm that I thought I’d set for 6.30 am was in fact on 6.30 pm.
I had to move fast to carry out my ablutions, pack my suitcase, and have some breakfast, before the coach left our hotel on the dot of 8.30 am. The sunshine and blue skies of yesterday had given away to a chillier and greyer day with, a bit later, even some rain.
We started out Thursday with a visit to a miso factory called Ishii Miso which was founded in 1868. Miso paste, which is so important to Japanese cooking, is a mixture of fermented soya beans with salt and other umami-based ingredients.
An employee explained the three- year process by which they made their special type of miso and claimed that the stuff had all sorts of proven health benefits, including reduction of the incidence of various cancers. After we had all sampled miso soup, we found that the factory shop sold miso pizza, miso candy, miso tea, miso ice cream – you get the idea.
Then, following the visit in the dark by some of us last evening, we all went to the famed Matsumoto Castle. This five-storey pagoda-style fortress is known as ‘Crow Castle’ due to its unusual black exterior. Built in the 1500s, this is the oldest remaining castle of its kind in Japan and has an impressive moat.
Climbing to the top of the castle was a little tricky. We had to put our shoes in a plastic bag, which we carried around with us, as we climbed in stocking feet up six floors involving seven sets of stairs, all of which were polished wood and both steep and sharply angled.
It was time to leave Matsumoto and travel to Takayama. We took the Mitsuboshi Kaidou Road through high forests with rivers, dams, sulphur fields, remains of snow, and lots of tunnels.
Our route traversed up to 4,600 feet (1400 metres). At this point, we stopped for lunch at a location called Hirayu where there was a bus station and a supermarket in an area of forest and snow. This is a region of Japan where there are very heavy snowfalls in winter.
On the outskirts of Takayama, we visited the open-air Hida Folk Village which has some 30 rustic farm dwellings from the Edo period of Japanese history (1600-1868). Life was tough in those days.
Takayama is the largest city in Japan by geography – even greater than metropolitan Tokyo – but 80% of the city is forest.
Our hotel for the night, the Hotel Associa, was on the outskirts of town and chosen for its facilities. These include what the Japanese call ‘onsen’. This is a hot spring in which everyone is totally naked. This hotel has both indoor and outdoor baths. I thought about it, but decided not to bother – too many rules (eight of them) and segregation.
In the evening, Jenny and I took the hotel’s courtesy bus into downtown Takayama to have an authentic Japanese meal of Hida beef. This beef is a renowned brand of Japanese wagyu, a luxury beef from black-haired Japanese cattle raised in Gifu Prefecture, known for its tender, finely marbled texture and rich flavour.