Hida Folk Village & Old Town Takayama
Takayama is well known for Hida-no-Sato, which is a village of Edo period buildings that they have relocated from the Hida region. Edo period was between 1603 & 1868 when Japan was ruled by shoguns of the Tokugawa family. The village contained old houses and gave a glimpse of what it was like to live during this time. And since Hida is in the mountains, most of the houses here were made to withstand the snow with their thickly thatched, incline roofs.
Takayama also has a part of town with little, wooden stores selling wares, trinkets and lovely snacks.
Ryokan
Ryokans are Japanese Inns that was used during the Edo period for travellers. These inns would have tiny rooms featuring tatami mat covered floors and sliding doors. This room would be pretty much your living room and bedroom as the dining table would be pushed to the corner and your futon-like mattress would be rolled out on the floor. Today, ryokans are mainly used by tourist and so the price of a true ryokan would be more costly than staying at a standard hotel. But since we're in Japan, we do like the tourist do, shore up our budget, and stay one night at a ryokan in Takayama, Oyado Koto No Yume.
The whole experience was pretty great. We were warmly greeted at the large entryway and asked to be seated while they prepare our room and gather the necessary paperwork for our reservation. While seated, they provided us with a little snack, which we're quite not sure what it was except that it was yummy, and a cup of warm tea. It was the perfect start of the evening after a day strolling around the lovely little town of Takayama.
After having our tea, we were ushered to our room and was provided with yukatas. Yukatas are similar to kimonos except they are made of cotton to be used during spring and summer. The owners of the ryokan informed us that we can wear the yukatas during our stay and can even wear them around town if we choose to. Once inside our room, we played dress-up and put on our yukatas. We pretty much wore them from check-in to check-out except when we bathed and slept.
Ryokans are also known for having communal bath facilities, one for men and one for women. Similar to a Korean bathhouse, they have an area to shower, though done sitting on stools, and a large bathing area. We've actually used them several times here in Japan since our hotel in Tokyo had one and so did our first hotel in Takayama. But the best one we've been to so far was the one at the ryokan we stayed at. The warm bath was larger than the other two, plus they had an outdoor bath, which felt great w/ the cool air and the warm water. Unfortunately, it would have been too tacky to have a camera in a communal bath, so we weren't able to take pictures.
After our bath, we opted to have a Japanese dinner served at the ryokan. Dinner at a ryokan is part of the experience, as they serve you several courses of delicious food. Some ryokan will serve your dinner in your room, but this ryokan had a dining room, so we at there with the other guests. Let me just say that the food was soooo good and the presentation was of course, well done.
The appetizer included baby squid, cherry blossom-flavored tofu, and rhubarb sushi.
Darin and Our Appetizer Tray
Place Setting
Appetizer
Following appetizer was salad, soup, and sashimi. The sashimi was our least favorite course, but it was still yummy.
Tuna, Squid, and Scallop Sashimi
Then we had our main courses starting with grilled fish.
Darin and Our Very Helpful Waitress
And then the main course was a tepenyaki grilled beef and vegetable. The Hida region is known for their beef, and after having Hida beef for dinner, we can see why. I've had kobe beef once and I remember how good it was. But I think this might have been just a little better.
So that was our two nights in a small town in Japan. On to the main attraction, Kyoto.
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