An hour’s bus ride from Takayama, where I am staying, is Shirakawa-go, a world heritage site in the mountainous area of central Japan. While it used to be a village where people worked and children played, it was abandoned years ago due to construction of dams (sound familiar?) It began a long comeback and is now home to many of the unique “gassho” style homes welcoming hoardes of visitors. Still, it is a lovely rural setting and the homes and other buildings are quite stunning.
I was fortunate to have a day there without the predicted rain. The autumn leaves have begun to turn up in the higher country in spite of the unseasonable warmth of this October. Autumn color is taking its sweet and glorious time. Nevertheless, today was cool enough for warm clothes, which I brought plenty of but haven’t had much need to wear. For this reason, lovely homes and setting notwithstanding, my best moment came while sitting around a wood fire set in traditional manner in the middle of one of the homes. Several of us sat around the fire and enjoyed proffered cups of green tea.
To get some of the feeling but without the actual warmth or the wood smell and smoke flowing all around, here’s a little video.
Finally, scenes from the village itself.
Autumn In Japan 