[ Mar.2016 ] On the second day in Hida Takayama in Gifu, Japan, we reluctantly started off to the town from the hotel room which we had to leave by 10am, though to be honest, since we ate and drank too much the night before, we wanted to stay in bed.
First we went to see the morning market in front of Takayama Jinya, an old town hall building. But the market was not lively at all, maybe because we were too late.
Apparently there are about 50 stalls usually, but on the day only 5 or so were there.
So instead, we went into Takayama Jinya.
Takayama was directly ruled by Edo Bakufu shogunate from 1692 to 1868 because they had the rich resources of forests and minerals.
Jinya is the place where the officials from Edo (now Tokyo) lived and worked.
There used to be more than 60 Jinyas all over Japan, but this is the only one left intact.
It was a surprisingly large wooden building.
Especially I was surprised to see the huge warehouse of annual tribute (the rice which was paid by farmers as the tax).
After that, we walked to the Matsumoto House, which was supposed to be open to the public to show how the old traditional houses are made and lived.
Unfortunately, it happened to be the closed day, but walking there, we could see that in Takayama, many people live in old fashioned wooden houses.
This photo is the scene of those houses.
Then we went to the inevitable “rows of old houses and streets”, the centre of the tourist attraction in the town.
We enjoyed shopping in the old fashioned shops, such as the Japanese sake shop.
There were many tourists there as this is one of the most famous touristy towns in Japan.
There were many foreign tourists, too, like in Shirakawago.
