Travels in Japan - Takayama and Shirakawago

Sometimes when you travel the expectation exceeds the reality of the situation. This is rare for me, especially when it comes to Japan, but when my family traveled there, we had an expectation to see the mountain hamlet of Shirakawago. The plan was to stay in neighboring Takayama, known for its old townscape with beautiful and quaint houses that feel like something out of the more ancient times. We would then go to the hamlet, which in itself has a lovely old feel with grass roofed houses (known as Gassho for the shape of hands in prayer). Unfortunetly for us we stayed at a not so nice hotel in Takayama and I think that colored the entire feeling of the one night stay. I won't beligure the Hotel experience other than to say it was a bad chance, and I think if we stayed at another place both my parents and I would have had a higher opinion. We also went in spring and there was still the sort of "Ugly Duckling" feeling to Shirakawgo, with more mud and semi-melted snow than the picturesque village scene we hoped for. Plus Shirakawago is a tourist destination, so it has little tourist shops here and there. It gives one an understanding that though this is a working village, and though it is beautiful, it does rely heavilly on tourists, and its not just a forgotten place that you stumble upon. I did like Takayama, and I would go back there and to Shirakawago in the fall or later spring to get a better sense, and stay at a better hotel for a better experience. My memories of Takayama are of streets with lovely wooden houses. Warm light touched from the glass or paper windows and lanterns in the morning as passed by on an early walk. The local museum had some very beautiful models of shrines we would see in Nikko, and some floats from their local festival. We also saw Mount Fuji on the train ride to Nikko, which was a highlight. Alas, the rest of this brief stint sort of fades into memory looking back. I can look through the pictures and think about what could be, but that's not what was. But that happens sometime. On our first trip our bad experience was a single restaurant outside Fushimi Inari, so this was our little brief one here. We would more than make up for it in Nikko.

Brief Glimpse at Fuji

Takayama Town Center

One of the old shops of Takayama

A carving/motif of a dragon at a local shrine

Festival Floats at the museum

Model of Toshogu Shrine in Nikko

Gassho Grass Roofed Farm Houses

Remnants of Winter

Fun little sign in Takayama

My family and I overlooking Shirakawago

I caught a brief ceremony at the local Inari Shrine.

9/11/2021

\    Sometimes emotions run raw when we think back to events in our life.  There are seminal moments that mark a generation that future generations might not be able to comprehend.  For my grandparents, Pearl Harbor was such an event, but for me Pearl Harbor was just history.  I knew about it, I respected the history I was told and the outcome of the attack on the United States at that time.   Growing up I never thought I would see such an event in my own lifetime.  

Travels in Japan - Fushimi Inari, A Cheeseburger and Mobile Wifi

  

There's few places on Earth that I've visited that have left such an indelible impression as Fushimi Inari.  I've covered my thoughts on this shrine dedicated to Worldly Wealth, Foxes and Rice (Mainly Foxes) before on my blog, so there's not much more to re-iterate on second visit.   Or is there?  Looking back I realized I began this endeavor cataloguing my second visit to Japan on April 2, 2016.   Between then and now there've been any number of snafu's from Google + nixing my original blog because I dared double post one day to Google + being deleted by Google itself, to job changes, other trips, Covid, etc.   It's been a long wild ride, and yet here I am looking back on something almost 5 years ago.

I look at these pictures, half a world away, and despite it all, I am transported back then, back to my second visit.  I was anxious to go back, partly because my camera at the time was on the fritz and half of my pictures did not turn out well at all.   Thank goodness they did this time.  There were other reasons too, I wanted to revisit my friends the foxes, and they were still there waiting patiently in their hundreds.   It is interesting to see each one, and while many bear a similarity, one can find a dynamic difference between each one.  

Another reason to visit is the location itself.  The colors are striking, red (or vemillion) on white, with a few other spare colors between.  These are shinto colors, colors of something sacred, and nestled here and there one finds little foxes like our friend below.  

One might laugh at the so called superstitions of other religions, and then one realizes ones own beliefs in oneself or greater power are no lesser or greater than these.   I boldly touched a statue after explaining that this is not usually done due to a superstition and proceeded to fall down a few sets of stairs.   Not recommended.  

When it comes to foxes, invariably there are five standard similarities.  They all usually have a red bib, they all usually bear a key or a jewel, they all sit on pedestals, and they all look just about ready to eat you alive.  Their eyes are distinctly fearsome, even when they seem playful like the one below, and the best ones are poised as if in mid movement, again like the one below.  In fact, this particular statue and fountain is my favorite of all the foxes of Inari.   It sits at a spring I don't know the name of, with a sprig of fresh bamboo always in its mouth.   It almost looks like its ready to slide ride on into the pool below.  

Another interesting thing about the mountain, besides the innumerable torii gates which I've talked about before are what I call Torii Villages.  These are little nooks and crannies where stone torii, shrines and wooden torii are clustered in such numbers as to look like the skyline of the Tokyo cityscape.  You might almost call them fox villages.

Like before, I wanted to visit the kind folks who had made me a torii gate and festooned it with blessings once before and thankfully they were still there and still open.  I don't expect they remembered me at all, considering the thousands of villagers everyday, but they are such good kind people and I was very grateful for the gentleman's work and the lady's presence. 

One thing I did change was visit another shop that had little wooden carved foxes in fanciful display, doing various normal human tasks.  My favorite was the second one below, which I brought home and features a fox and its little friend waving and welcoming someone.   I thought of my two fox characters in my book when I saw this and figured it was fate I stumbled on them.  

There are other, smaller foxes if one knows where to look, peeking behind pillars and posts, standing a silent vigil by the thousands.

Most visitors will stand arrested by the Torii, but half the battle of enjoying them is waiting a chance to snap a picture.  Out of maybe 100 pictures, I have four that show the full magnificence of these Torii hallways stretching out for what seems time immortal.  

Light plays important part of Fushimi, and I once spoke about the dangers of nighttime there.  By day the lamps rest on the Torii as a reminder of the evening to come.   After a full day, my family was tired and hungry, so we had a tradition to enjoy.   

I don't know if there's something about an American style cheeseburger with fries in japan that makes it so rewarding to get one, but My God, after Japanese food and a lot of walking this burger at Kyoto Station or Osaka Station (I cannot remember which one) was delicious.   The last time we were in Kyoto we did McDonalds, and getting a burger has become something of a tradition.  My Dad also took this time to share a picture of the little wifi mobile hotspot we used.  These are a lifesafer in Japan, allowing us to get wifi for finding our way on the road.   I cannot stress enough how important and useful these are to the traveler in Japan, especially when you're not 100 percent on where your going.  That 99 percent might be good, but its the 1 percent chance that can make a difference.

Returning to our hotel in Osaka overlooking the Castle, we found an enormous crowd gathered to enter the local venue.  I did a little investigation and these are all women, all gathered to see a local pop group.  What was weird was they were there when we left, and we came back and all the while I only saw them taking pictures with cardboard cutouts of their boy band idols.  I don't know or have any idea if they actually had a concert.   It was just another slice of Japan that I could watch from a window and gratefully admire without actually participating in.

Why I Miss Google +

 There was a time I looked forward to blogging, to getting my thoughts and ideas out there and seeing the interactions with people.  I looked forward to the chance to share and read what others shared.   That was not so long ago, on Google Plus.    

I've shared my thoughts on Google and its problems before.  Other than its troubling political leanings (at least in my opinion) Google made a very curious decision to cancel its sharing platform.   Google Plus was a great way to find communities, but now that's long gone, and I find it much harder to find equal thoughts and footing.  I have ebbed onto other things, such as MeWe, and stayed away from certain things such as Tumblr simply because of its reputation.     Facebook gets hacked every other day with no consequence.  The list of viable alternatives is very limited.

For me writing is as much about the anticipation of reaction as much as the action of writing itself.  I can spin a world of ruin or creation with just a few lines.   Google caused other problems in the past too, nixing a blog of mine with a false flag of spam because of a mistake and of course, Google had no way to contact and appeal my concern.   Sound's a lot like what I hear about youtube ... oh wait, its owned by the same company.

A friend of mine called this new era the start of the true Corporate overculture.  You can see this sort of idea in Blade Runner's envisioned future with huge and faceless corporations overseeing the consumer masses even as they grow more poor and desperate.   Meanwhile, the overlords get richer and more disassociated from humanity.   Of course, I also realize the irony of this statement and making it on a Google Platform Blog.   

I realize I use Google pathways to search, and Google email for work and other things.   There's a simplicity in the easiest and largest way to do a thing.   I can decry what they've done wrong, and yet I can also long for one thing they got right.   For a chance to reach out, have a community, a chance to interact, react and grow.   Maybe something will develop in the future, improving my opinion again.

Image courtesy of Wikipedia Commons:  https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e9/Google%2B_logo.svg/250px-Google%2B_logo.svg.png