We have to get out of Takayama. Because it is raining again and there is a place nearby that you can get to by bus that sounds LOADS more interesting.
Shirakawa-Go is a little village in a remote part of the Japanese Alps that was founded by a clan after nearly being wiped out during a war with another clan.
I will fill in the details later when I have more time but thats the general gist of it.
They decided on this remote place so that they wouldn`t be easily found if anyone wanted to finish the job, and they could just have a nice peaceful life in the mountains, pretty much cut off from the world.
Fast foward to today and many of the original buildings remain and are still in use! There is also an outdoor museum of some heritage buildings which were moved to the site to avoid being destroyed by the building of one of the many dams in the area. You can go inside every building and no area is off limits, you`re pretty much left to your own devices, no one bothers you, you are just trusted to follow the rules on the signs. At each of the buildings you have to take off your shoes before going in and each building has a little display to keep you interested.
We just stayed in and around these older buildings because of the masses of tourists in the town proper. Its not just in London that there are loads of Japanese tourists. There are loads of Japanese tourists in Japan as well.
The little village museum is great, you can spend ages just walking about taking pictures, it seems that the whole place is incredibley photogenic. I`ll throw some pics up soon so I dont have to discribe them.
After pottering about the village in the rain for a few hours, we got some lunch and did a bit of souvineer shopping. We found these tins of sweets that are shown in this Studio Ghibli film called "Grave of the Fireflies" (great film but really depressing!) and I got all excited before buying a couple of tins!
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