Kanazawa, Japan, Day 2

A long excursion today brought us to 2 different World Heritage Villages and we met a fabulous Japanese woman who was our tour guide.

We first went to the Shirakawago Village.which is comprised of a number of gassho houses that are special because of their thatched roofs. The village is an actual place that people live, but tourists come to see this unusual living situation. This village is high in the mountains - the drive alone was worth the trip. The mountains are steep and quite uninhabited otherwise. Because of its location, the village receives quite a bit of snowfall and cold temperatures in the winter. Having said that, these houses from the early 1800’s have no real insulation, sketchy windows and they heat with a fire in the middle of the main living area-no chimney. Our guide warned us that we would smell like a smoked salmon when we left and we did. The thatching is made from what we’d call pampas grass and each family has its own field of it. The thick roofs need to be redone about every 20 years and it is done by the family and neighbors.

Our next stop was a Japanese lunch. There were lots of items brought to the table, some good, some not so good, most were unrecognizable.
I don’t think Japanese food is our favorite.

Gokayama village was similar to the earlier village with the same types of houses.
A quick walk around here was all we had time for.

We were off to a paper factory after the village.
The man in charge gave us a great lesson on paper-making and we proceeded to make postcards. It was fun and great to have something to take home. We generally don’t shop much on trips, but the paper products at the store here were absolutely beautiful and all made on the premises. We did a good portion of our Christmas shopping so it was doubly good!

The sweet Japanese tradition that makes us smile is whenever we leave anywhere (restaurants, stores, etc.), they wave at you continually until you are out of sight. You can imagine that this goes on for quite a while when we leave a port on the ship!

Just 4 days left on our trip before we leave from Tokyo on Tuesday. It is always with mixed emotions that we end our trips.Lue lisää