April 8, 2014
April 8, 2014
We are served our Japanese breakfast in the public eating area of the ryokan. Aimee initially groans but we are both pleasantly surprised at the selection of foods. It is less fishy and more palatable for western stomachs. We are quite pleased. One dish was a local specialty, miso paste and onions cooked on a magnolia leaf. Tasty!
Takayama is a cute town in the Japanese Alps that still has more traditional wooden buildings than are normally found in today’s modern Japan. We start out at the morning market perusing the handmade goods, and local foods. We toured Yoshijima, the preserved house of a Sake brewer from the early 1900s. It is a large open house with many rooms, all empty and lined with tatami mats. A Japanese room is multi-functional changing with the furniture moved into it. The house is cold walking thru it without shoes.
We stroll the area stopping in many small stores including several Sake breweries, all distinguished by a large cedar ball hanging over the doorway. We taste the different varieties and then buy a larger portion of sake that is served in a traditional square wooden cup filled to the brim. Aimee doesn’t like the wooden cup as she finds the wood aroma interferes with the taste of the sake. She has become a sake connoisseur now. We buy a bottle of sake packaged in a miniature version of the brightly painted barrel.
Takayama used to be a regional government center. We toured the restored administrative buildings, but it was mostly uninteresting. In Shogun times, tax was paid in the form of rice. Apparently the amount of rice paid was so high that the local farmers starved and rioted on several occasions.
Aimee and I shared a tempura lunch and then went back to the ryokan to rest. We finish the day with another soak in the ryokan thermal bath.
For dinner we were served another kaiseki-style meal. Like the breakfast, we enjoyed this dinner much better. Besides a better variety, the ryokan also gave us a listing of what we were being served in English. That took a lot of the mystery out of the food. One of the items was Hida beef. Like its more famous Kobe cousin, this meat is intensely marbled, shaved thin, and very expensive. When cooked, it almost melts in your mouth.
After dinner we walked down the street to a pachinko parlor. Somehow my father acquired one of these Japanese pinball machines when I was a kid so I am familiar with it. What we didn’t expect on entering was the blast of loud music. It is too overwhelming and we quickly exit after only a few minutes.
Takayama is a cute town in the Japanese Alps that still has more traditional wooden buildings than are normally found in today’s modern Japan. We start out at the morning market perusing the handmade goods, and local foods. We toured Yoshijima, the preserved house of a Sake brewer from the early 1900s. It is a large open house with many rooms, all empty and lined with tatami mats. A Japanese room is multi-functional changing with the furniture moved into it. The house is cold walking thru it without shoes.
We stroll the area stopping in many small stores including several Sake breweries, all distinguished by a large cedar ball hanging over the doorway. We taste the different varieties and then buy a larger portion of sake that is served in a traditional square wooden cup filled to the brim. Aimee doesn’t like the wooden cup as she finds the wood aroma interferes with the taste of the sake. She has become a sake connoisseur now. We buy a bottle of sake packaged in a miniature version of the brightly painted barrel.
Aimee and I shared a tempura lunch and then went back to the ryokan to rest. We finish the day with another soak in the ryokan thermal bath.
For dinner we were served another kaiseki-style meal. Like the breakfast, we enjoyed this dinner much better. Besides a better variety, the ryokan also gave us a listing of what we were being served in English. That took a lot of the mystery out of the food. One of the items was Hida beef. Like its more famous Kobe cousin, this meat is intensely marbled, shaved thin, and very expensive. When cooked, it almost melts in your mouth.
After dinner we walked down the street to a pachinko parlor. Somehow my father acquired one of these Japanese pinball machines when I was a kid so I am familiar with it. What we didn’t expect on entering was the blast of loud music. It is too overwhelming and we quickly exit after only a few minutes.
posted by Mike and Aimee at 9:22 AM
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