Hida Weekend

So this weekend (posted a few weeks later) I was fortunate enough to go on a completely free weekend to a beautiful spot in Japan. Kiri was approached by a tour company a few weeks ago to invite her and some of her foreigner friends on a test-run tour of the Hida region in northern Gifu for foreigners. The only catch was we had to let them take photos of us which they may use for promotion material, and fill out a survey at the end of the tour! It was wicked! We had such a wonderful time!
The bus picked us up Saturday morning from Gifu station and took us north to Hida where we met our fellow tour mates then went apple picking. On the tour with us were people from Indonesia, Malaysia, China, Thailand and of course my friends from Australia and America. It was a really cool and diverse group of about 20 of us.
Hida is famous for many types of food; including apples, peaches, beef and milk. After apple picking (and many photo ops) we headed to a nice little restaurant for a welcome speech from one of the government employees and a traditional Japanese lunch. We then headed to a Samurai house that was rebuilt using traditional Japanese architecture. It was gorgeous! I love all the paper walls and the designs in the architecture. It was also really neat sitting by the rock gardens and realizing that we were looking at the same views that people would have five hundred years ago who visited the grounds for fancy dinner parties would have been looking at. The house also came equipped with also very cool hidden sliding doors where “ninja-like guards” could jump out and surprise people who attempted to attack the master of the household. (You know we couldn’t resist taking pictures in that place!)
We then were supposed to go on a big trek through some country trails but because of the rain earlier in the morning we went for a walk around some paths in town instead. They were so gorgeous! Twas a very picturesque little town that Kamioka of Hida city. The leaves were enormous and so colorful. For you physics people out there the town also won a nobel prize for some mining particle thing (I’ll update when I find out more).
Since the train stopped running to the town a few years ago, some of the people in the town decided to use the rail lines for bike trails. They created quite the contraptions that allowed us to ride on the tracks through the gorgeous scenery. The Bike Rail Ride was lots of fun and quite original! By this point we were quite tired and getting chilly. We then went to an Onsen in the area. Onsen’s are sooo relaxing especially as the weather gets cooler!
We then went to our hotel and had an official welcome reception and dinner party with many of the people from the tourism department of the city. It was so nice of them! A deluxe dinner for all of us, of course filled with many delicacies from the area. The night was, as many are in Japan, surrounded by speeches, songs, dancing, and endless sake and Asahi beer. : )
Our accommodations were really nice. We stayed in a cute little hotel where half of us were in Japanese style tatami rooms and the other half in Western style beds.
The second day of the tour we had more traditional Japanese breakfast foods and then got to try making soba by hand. It was really neat to learn and quite the art form. We also got to sample our masterpieces! The only thing that wasn’t fun was cooking in the freezing cold. Oh how I miss indoor central heating! And hot water in taps!!
Lunch was a traditional hot pot in a cute little restaurant in Furukawa Town. We then went on a few tours of museums in Furukawa like the shrine museums where they hold 3 of the 9 shrines used during the Matsuri festival. (I def plan on going back for the festival April 19 and 20 with the huge parades of shrines and midnight rite called Okoshi Daiko where young men in loincloths parade a giant drum through the streets and compete to place small drums on a stage. It looks like a riot! I’ll try to add video later!) The craft museum and exploring the architecture in the town was very interesting as well. Furukawa was a very cute little town complete with multiple old school sake breweries, a store with a man making candles in the window display (whose family had been doing it for many many generations), a picturesque temple, canal lined streets throughout town and heaps of trees with all the beautiful fall colors Japan has to offer. We of course also sampled the local specialty foods from each area and did some souvenir shopping. My Hello Kitty phone danglers collection is getting pretty massive at this point! Twas such a great weekend and the kindness was overwhelming! I heart Japan!