Holiday in Japan (6): Takayama & Hiroshima
Friday in Takayama started with thick mist but the mist soon burned off to provided a bright morning for our city tour. Meanwhile our luggage went off to Kyoto and we had to content ourselves with an overnight bag for the next two days.
We began the city tour with a visit the Miyagawa morning market by the river, part outside and part inside. The market was predominately food and drink options and lots of souvenir shops but it was a relaxed atmosphere.
Our main visit, though, was to Takayama Jinya. During the Edo period (1692-1868), this was the home and administration of the local governor. Every local area had such a centre of power, but this is the only one of its kind to survive.
It is an extensive complex of rooms with wooden frames, tatami-matted floors and thin sliding walls – in its time, a place of maximum intrigue and minimal privacy.
Afterwards there was a little free time which Jenny and I used to visit a cafe for coffee and cheesecake.
The rest of the day was travelling by train: a limited express from Matsumoto to Nagoya, travelling about 100 miles south and taking two and a half hours, and then a bullet train from Nagoya to Hiroshima, travelling about 300 miles west and taking just over two hours.
The Japanese bullet train system is known locally as the Shinkansen and was first instituted in 1964. Trains travel at up to 186 miles (300 kilometres) an hour.
To most of the world, Hiroshima is simply the city where the first atomic bomb was dropped in 1945. To its citizens, however, it is a city with a long history (it was established in 1589 as a castle town) and a bustling modern metropolis of some 1.2 million.
Once we were checked in at the very large and somewhat impersonal ANA Crowne Plaza Hotel, we were accompanied to the nearby Hondon Shopping Arcade – which is enormous – and then left to our own devices for dinner.
Jenny and I found a tiny restaurant which served us with a set menu of 10 skewers of various foods, many of which we were quite unable to identify. There were no other foreigners in the place and nobody spoke English, so we felt that it was an authentic Japanese experience.
Sadly one couple in our group had a much less enjoyable experience when they became totally lost and took two hours to return to our hotel.