On The Inadequacy of the Silkworm: my trip to Takayama

Spring! It's actually warm here in Nagoya and my coat is nestled away with the spiders. After a chaotic few weeks I'm settling into part-time work and starting to plan all the things I want to do with my newfound free time. First on the list is conquering my backlog of blog posts I want to write. Theoretically there are things I want to write about that happened as far back as last January, but realistically I'm not sure I ever will. Instead, I'll tell you about the trip I took back in February, so take off all your clothes and stand in front of an open fridge so you can better imagine the scene.

A couple of hours north of Nagoya lie the mountains of Gifu Prefecture. Whilst my home prefecture, Aichi, is mostly known for car manufacturing and rudeness, Gifu is known for its skiing, hiking and hot springs; think of it as the clean-living aunt to Aichi's quietly angry uncle. Nestled obscurely in the mountains you'll find historical villages which are famous for their gassho houses, with their trademark steep triangular rooves. You might have seen them on some Buzzfeed list or other, looking like the Frosty Village track from Diddy Kong Racing:

Nick and I had wanted to visit for a long time, especially during the snowy season (which, to be fair, lasts about eight months of the year in north Gifu). Finally, towards the end of winter, we had four days off in a row, and were able to book a hotel to spend a couple of days in Takayama, the biggest town in the area, and Shirakawa-go, a famous traditional village where the houses have been preserved for visitors.

From Nagoya, you can get to Takayama via a special train called the 'Wide View', which funnily enough gives you a wide view. The windows are floor-to-ceiling length so you can best admire the scenic route through the mountains. Above you can see the incredible teal colour of the rivers that pass through Gifu (and maybe, if you look closely, my scrunched-up little face in the reflection of the window).

Takayama itself was bigger than I expected; I'd imagined a village but it's actually quite a large town. It was fairly quiet when we went - peak season was over - but there were a few restaurants and shops that were used to catering for tourists, and a fair amount of English around.

Although I would argue they haven't really understood what 'a lot of pizza' is supposed to look like.

After lunch at a burger place that had been highly recommended, we traipsed up to our ryokan (Japanese traditional-style inn), trampling our way through perfectly white, crisp snow. By coincidence, there was a lovely folk village/museum just five minutes' walk from the ryokan so we decided to have a look round before check-in.

The first thing we noticed in the folk village was a massive lake, completely frozen over, with a suspicious trail of footprints circling aimlessly about the fresh layer of snow that topped it. Specifically, bird prints. We were visiting out-of-season and our only fellow guest was a swan, who seemed uninterested in the local history. We learned a few things at the village, mostly about the local silk industry and how completely useless silkworms are at surviving without human help.

A resolution to carve "about 120,000 statues". I didn't know lifelong goals both so bold and so vague.

The answer is: laaaaaame.

Back in the ryokan, I spoke a handful of Japanese to our hostess, who responded by explaining all the ryokan's rules to me in fluid native-level Japanese. Somehow I understood the majority of it and grinned proudly at my beloved, like a toddler that's managed to use the toilet for the first time. Unfortunately it turned out that after (correctly) taking my shoes off in the lobby, I'd (incorrectly) put on some wooden clogs that were only supposed to be worn in the bathroom, and was traipsing around all the lovely rooms getting poo germs everywhere. The hostess was very nice about it.

We ended our evening with a delicious dinner at a nearby noodle bar. It was the kind solely inhabited by elderly locals with voices like Rizlas, who consider the patron at the end of the bar of fifteen years' standing to be suspicious because he's too new. Happily, they weren't unkind to the two young foreigners suddenly in their midst, just a bit shocked that we'd managed to appear there. A few of the typical questions came up and we gave typical answers - we're from the UK, yes we can eat noodles, yes we can use chopsticks. (There was all-round amazement at the fact we could eat noodles, but seemingly no concern that we wouldn't be able to understand all the Japanese that was being spoken.) Our fellow customers even took our side against the proprietor when she got our order wrong - the proprietor being part of that eccentric breed of elderly Japanese restaurant owners that take your order by barking questions at you repeatedly, disappearing halfway through the order and coming back with a dish chosen at random. The random dish was very tasty.

The following day we took a bus to Shirakawa-go, the village famous for its wintry beauty and perfect gabled houses. The main thing I can tell you about Shirakawa-go is that it's really bloody cold. The next, perhaps less obvious thing I can tell you, is that it's really bloody difficult to see because the bright sunlight reflects off the snow and directly into your bloody eyeballs. Usually I carry my sunglasses in my handbag all year round, but I'd just emptied it recently in an attempt to ease my constant shoulder pain. So I can't tell you much more about Shirakawa-go, except that it's extremely beautiful and looks like the northern end of the universe - when you actually brave snow-blindness and dare yourself to look at it.