by John Lander
Swaddled in a fluffy futon at your inn, you awake to the soft sound of slippers in the morning quiet as the maid gently knocks on your sliding door and enters with a breakfast tray. Stillness is one of the defining features of Takayama, deep in the heartland of Japan. To travel here is to book a passage to an older, gentler Japan. Known for its antiquity and refined wooden buildings, many of which were made by the same artisans who built Kyoto. Takayama offers a low-key version of Japanese history and architecture without the mobs.
Surrounded by the Japan Alps, Gifu Prefecture has always been secluded from the rest of Japan particularly in winter when in days of old, the place was completely snowed in and neglected. But there lies its charm. While the rest of Japan modernized at breakneck speed, Takayama kept its old fangled ways and continued to live in low-rise wooden buildings. And here these modest monuments still stand, as they have for centuries alongside ancient temples, shrines and traditional craft workshops in this living museum of a city. Briefly, the pace of Takayama picks up each morning for the morning markets, held along the Miyagawa River where locals from surrounding farms bring in their local produce and set up shop offering a glimpse of life in Japan before bullet trains, steel-and-glass skyscrapers and neon signs.
Sanmachi is the heart of the old city with its tiny streets and alleys built for rickshaws and pedestrians. The area is made up of vintage buildings housing private homes, art galleries and sake distilleries where you may go in for some tasting. (Look for the giant green globes of cedar twigs, shaped into a ball above doorways—the old symbol for sake in Japan).
The Northern Gifu village of Shirakawago was even more isolated than Takayama, and its unique style of architecture, called gassho zukuri or “praying hands” refers to the steep 60-degree pitch of the thatched roofs. These unique roofs were designed as such to keep the roofs from collapsing due to the heavy snow; the steep pitch causes most of the snow to slide off. The gables of these unique houses were also traditionally used for silkworm production, with the human inhabitants living downstairs next to the warmth of the hearth. The unique architecture of the village is so well-preserved that Shirakawago has been declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The village and surrounding area is still agricultural, as evidenced by the farm equipment—ladders, tools, and sickles outside the cottages. Farmers repair the walls of their rice paddies, throaty frogs start up their chorus from the fields, and the pleasant smell of woodsmoke reminds you of the dinner being prepared at the hearth of your inn as you head for your own praying roof home for the night.
Read the full article and the rest of our special report on Japan in our May 2009 issue.
