Takayama [高山]
Takayama [高山] is famous for its;
・Old Private Houses - Furui-machi-nami [古い町並]: Recognised as a site National Preservation area of Historically Important Buildings
・Hida Beef - [飛騨牛]: Tasty beef which rivals Kobe's famous brand and which has also been in the news for cloning...(here)
・Sarubobo dolls - [さるぼぼ]: Little faceless dolls which come in a range of sizes who wear little black cloth hats, and an apron (which usually has the Kanji Hida [飛騨] written on the front). The dolls act as good luck charms, and different colours basically represent wishes for different kinds of luck. Traditionally they red in colour - which is meant to ask for easy delivery of a child, but also come in about 5 other colours: yellow, blue, pink, green and black which wish for money, study, love, good health and riddance of bad luck respectively.
・Festival Floats - [屋台]: There are 25 different floats in Takayama, made by craftsmen for which the Takayama district is famous for. 12 of these floats are used in the Spring Festival [春の高山祭] - Held April 14-15th and also known as the Sanno Festival. Another 11 of the floats appear in the Autumn Festival [秋の高山祭] which is held on October 9-10th, and the remaining 2 take part in different festivals all together.
We saw lots of the big, purpose built store houses for the festival floats dotted all around town, but they were all locked up so we weren't able to see any of the things themselves. On the brightside there are photos of all the various floats HERE.
Anyhoo, we only got to Takayama in the late afternoon, so there was only really time to have a quick look around the old town district [古い町並] - wondering into the few shops that were still open at 5pm (which wasn't many), have tea and cake in a little coffee shop, then look for a place for dinner.
We managed to find a great place for dinner, which looked like an Izakaya [居酒屋] with a small barbeque in the middle of the table. They even kindly offered us a English menu - which included lots of pictures to aid the choosing and ordering-via-pointing process.
The food was great. But we did get told off by the old lady serving us when we commited a hideous crime of turning over the shitake mushrooms on the barbeque - which then led her to watching our food like a hawk (in a caring way - it was quite funny actually - she was vetting all the meat and veg coming off the grill plate 'chicken: OKAY' etc...) just to make sure we didn't do anything wrong again. Anyway, you should cook shitake mushrooms with their tops facing the fire. DON'T turn them over, or they loose all their juice and you end up eating dried, chewy mushroom. Which is bad.
・Old Private Houses - Furui-machi-nami [古い町並]: Recognised as a site National Preservation area of Historically Important Buildings
・Hida Beef - [飛騨牛]: Tasty beef which rivals Kobe's famous brand and which has also been in the news for cloning...(here)
・Sarubobo dolls - [さるぼぼ]: Little faceless dolls which come in a range of sizes who wear little black cloth hats, and an apron (which usually has the Kanji Hida [飛騨] written on the front). The dolls act as good luck charms, and different colours basically represent wishes for different kinds of luck. Traditionally they red in colour - which is meant to ask for easy delivery of a child, but also come in about 5 other colours: yellow, blue, pink, green and black which wish for money, study, love, good health and riddance of bad luck respectively.
・Festival Floats - [屋台]: There are 25 different floats in Takayama, made by craftsmen for which the Takayama district is famous for. 12 of these floats are used in the Spring Festival [春の高山祭] - Held April 14-15th and also known as the Sanno Festival. Another 11 of the floats appear in the Autumn Festival [秋の高山祭] which is held on October 9-10th, and the remaining 2 take part in different festivals all together.
Sarubobo dolls clinging to twigs outside a toys shop in Furui-Machi
We saw lots of the big, purpose built store houses for the festival floats dotted all around town, but they were all locked up so we weren't able to see any of the things themselves. On the brightside there are photos of all the various floats HERE.
Anyhoo, we only got to Takayama in the late afternoon, so there was only really time to have a quick look around the old town district [古い町並] - wondering into the few shops that were still open at 5pm (which wasn't many), have tea and cake in a little coffee shop, then look for a place for dinner.
The food was great. But we did get told off by the old lady serving us when we commited a hideous crime of turning over the shitake mushrooms on the barbeque - which then led her to watching our food like a hawk (in a caring way - it was quite funny actually - she was vetting all the meat and veg coming off the grill plate 'chicken: OKAY' etc...) just to make sure we didn't do anything wrong again. Anyway, you should cook shitake mushrooms with their tops facing the fire. DON'T turn them over, or they loose all their juice and you end up eating dried, chewy mushroom. Which is bad.
No comments:
Post a Comment