Kamikochi to Kanazawa

Bit of a brief run through here as I'm falling behind on the blogs - we are already on our last night in Kyoto and heading to Nara tomorrow morning.

Entering the Japan Alps, we bused our way up into the mountains and autumn foliage, past numerous dams and through numerous tunnels. Kamikochi is a bit of a hidden valley high up on the crest of the Souther Japan Alps, and while the mounatins here are higher, there is less snow and they aren't as impressive as the Northern Japan Alps. We enjoyed Kamikochi for the fresh air and peace and quiet, but we were probably expecting something more dramatic from what all the guidebooks etc tell you. I think perhaps also we are spoilt living in the South Island of NZ! We had a really nice wander around the valley for about 3 hours anyway and were fortunate enough to see a whole troup of snow monkeys, complete with young, wander along the river foraging for food and drinking water. The autumn colours had all but completely disappeared from up at these altitudes but the bamboo and silvery bark of the trees still looks very pretty.

Kamikochi Valley from Kappa-bashi

Clear water and wetlands, Kamikochi

Snow monkey (Japanese macaques) foraging for food

Carrying on through the alps to Takayama we passed lots and lots of skifields (without snow unfortunately). Think this would be a very busy area come winter! Takayama was utterly charming and we really loved our two nights here. The old part of town is really magic - like something out of an old Japanese film. Is like what you imagine the Edo era streets to look like. It absolutely poured down with rain during our stay so we were happy to be wandering the streets and spending ages looking at the many beautiful shops and sake breweries (Takayama has very clear water so brews good sake). We stayed at this rather funny temple hostel - Zenkoji - a sister temple to the more famous one in Nagano. Very nice spacious rooms, lovely old wooden temple and a beautiful garden but the host could have been a bit friendlier. I think he was sick of having to say the same things to new guests over and over again as it was a very busy/popular and cheap accomodation. He wasn't japanese either!

The streets of old Takayama - Sanmachi-suji

Sanmachi-suji, Takayama

Heading west again from Takayam towards Kanazawa on the coast, we took a bus through to the region of Shirakawa-go and the World Heritage village of Ogimachi, site of some famous gassho-zukuri houses with thatched roofs. We spent about 4 hours here, wandering around the village - which is a working one, by the way, quite a number of people live here. Lots of rice paddies, terraces, vegetables, trout and carp ponds.

Traditional thatched-roof gassho-zukuri houses at Ogimachi in Shirakawa-go

 Dave and Kate in Ogimachi

 Autumn along the river (Sho-kawa) in Shirakawa-go

Finally we reached the west coast and Kanazawa where we spent the morning visiting Kenroku-en, one of Japan's three most famous gardens. Personally, we liked the more intimate style of Kyoto's gardens that were to come a lot more, but the Japanese take more stock in panoramic views and wide, open gardens. The garden's design follows 6 desired attributes for perfection - seclusion, spaciousness, artificiality, antiquity, abundent water and broad views. Finally, we got back on the trains again and headed to Kyoto past Lake Biwa for 4 nights.

Kenroku-en