Hida no Sato

My day started at 10am when a cleaner burst into my room. She didn’t even knock, her philosophy must be, “Why knock when you have the key?” I was half sleeping at the time, the kind of sleep where you keep looking at the clock to see that what felt like hours of drifting of sleep were just minutes in real time.

I wasn’t in any state of undress so I just looked at her confused. She said, “Oh, what about cleaning?”
“It’s ok not to clean today,” I said and she left.

This hotel is a little odd, they demand that you leave your key at the desk when you go out but they get annoyed when you actually do that. Sometimes they hide the keys under boards with Japanese kanji scrawled over them. The first time this happened I had no idea what the board said or even what it might say so I rang the bell for assistance. It’s a classic bash it on the top silver bell but it seems to be muffled by something so just makes an emasculating clunk noise.

A sleepy guy came out from around the corner and grunted so I took the key, “I can’t read kanji,” I explained pointing to the boards half apologetically but he was already plodding back to his sofa.

Hida no Sato is a collection of old houses rescued from different parts of Hida. Why would you rescue a house you may wonder. Because of a dam is my guidebook’s reply. They rescued about 30 houses, shrines etc, took them apart and built them again to make a village museum called Hida no Sato.


As soon as you walk in through the ticket gate you know it was worth coming. A large pond lies at the front of the village with the houses doting the grassy slopes behind. A solitary swan floats in the water, its reflection floating beneath just as vividly. A stream flowing down the mountain powers a water wheel that makes oddly familiar creaking noises.


I was taking pictures of all this when a woman wearing a name badge said to me, “Free photo service for your camera.” She had spoken to me in English but I still thought, “What?” Then I realised she was offering to take a picture of me using my camera, for free. “No it’s ok,” I said.


This might sound like a terrible stereotype but Asian people love taking pictures of themselves, their friends and family in famous places. It seems strange to me because I know what I look like and I go to places to see them, not what I look like with them behind me. On the other hand you may well ask what is the point of just taking generic pictures of places, when there are already so many in existence. I guess the answer is the hope that you can take a picture that is different to all the rest and reflects your individual journey, without you actually needing to appear in it. Or something.

The leaflet I was given detailed a strict route around the houses. Though no one else seemed to be following it.

The first house had a great smokey smell from a small fire burning inside. The descriptions were very detailed on this: the fire not only added atmosphere but kept the house dry and the ropes holding up the roof tight.


There were big houses, small houses, houses with two or even three floors, large tatami rooms, enormous family shrines and one with a bored looking woman sewing things for the gift shop. She kept sighing and I wanted to sit down in front of her and say, “Tell me your life story,” but I didn’t as that phrase isn’t in my phrasebook.


One house had this in.


I didn't


So it was beautiful and interesting. The view of the mountains was good too. It looked like snow in the distance but it might just be rock.


In summary it was like Heidi.


After returning to the hotel, eating and sleeping I ventured out into the heat again to do the Hida Takayama walking tour. My town map from the tourist information office included this walk and its many places to start from.

The nearest starting point was at the cemetery I visited the day before. I walked up the steep steps to the shrine, already sweating. I was looking for any sign of the walk but there were none. I walked down two wrong paths and then surveyed my map again.


Retracing my steps, quite a lot of them, I found the official beginning of the walk. In a Zen like way it was also the end of the walk and as such all of the signs pointing the way showed two directions.


The first part of the walk took me through about eight shrines. One after another they came as the walk kept turning left and right through Japanese gardens, over little bridges, down steps, along the street to the next shrine. It was so random that I thought it might end up going into someone’s house, up the stairs, out the bathroom window and over the roof of the next house.

After shrine land the walk went along streets that gradually became narrower and narrower. They were the kind of streets where, if it wasn’t for the walk, residents would wonder why on earth I was there.

In the heat most of the houses had open doors where, walking passed, you got tiny glimpses into people’s lives. The smell of food, the clattering of plates, women talking outside the back door, dogs barking, children watching anime.

I got lost in the atmosphere of the walk and eventually realised that I was actually lost too. The light was fading.

I found a shop selling remote control helicopters and planes. I nervously slid open the door and asked for directions. The man behind the counter puzzled over my map and then took me outside to explain the way – which was backwards.

He spoke good English and told me that he used to be a pilot. There were lots of countries he had planned on visiting like America, England, Australia and Russia. We both agreed that Russia would be pretty hard to visit and stared at the floor for a moment. He asked me where I was going next and I struggled to remember Shokugawa Go, but we got there in the end. He mentioned a local scandal: someone had sold some bad meat in town.

We were conversing pretty well and I wondered whether he would ask me if I wanted to eat dinner. “Have you tried the ramen yet?” he asked me.
“Actually, no. I’m a vegetarian.”
“Ahhh,” his face fell, but he did say that it was a healthy way to live.

I thanked him and headed back. I wondered if it was the normal occupation of ex-pilots to open model shops, or maybe it was just his way of keeping his tie with the skies. He didn’t seem that old, he had a youthfulness about him so I think he’ll make it to his dream destinations. Perhaps my visit to him will have reminded him of the joy of travelling or encouraged him that foreigners are not so foreign. Or maybe he will devoutly stay in Japan, “Vegetarians,” he will whimper at night hugging his blanket. “They’re real.”

The light was fading fast as I hurriedly retraced my steps. I didn’t know how many to retrace though. A woman was stopping traffic to let high school students cross the road. It was about 7:30PM but many students stay late for sports training.

I showed her my map and asked her where I was but with the lack of light and the vague directions of the map she really wasn’t sure where I should go. The next point on the map was an obscure bridge somewhere or other. Two high school girls came along and joined in the map staring. Together they managed to figure out which route I should take.

“Go straight,” said one of the girls in English, much to the admiration of the others. She explained the way and drew a map too.


I set off again waving my thanks to them. I found the little bridge and then another sign pointing in two directions.

The direction it led me went up a steep hill and into some dark trees at the edge of a forest. I made my way up the hill to get a better look. A dog on a leash attached to a washing line ran at me barking viciously until it ran out of washing line to pull.

The path into the trees was just as dark up close as it looked from far away, I guess that’s how Physics works. The sensible part of my mind said I should head back to the hotel and try again tomorrow. The reckless part said I should go for it; I could use the light of my phone as a torch until the battery ran out. The sensible part retorted with two words, “Blair Witch,” and won the argument.

I found my way back into town and decided I should eat in a restaurant tonight. “Stop being such a coward,” I told myself.

I was looking for Tempura or Soba restaurants. I found one that advertised Soba but had pictures of ramen on the tiny menu outside. I stared, at the menu; it seemed to have only four choices: “Noodle Soba” big or small and “Beef soba” big or small. Thinking that there must be more choices inside I entered the restaurant.

It was horribly quiet, I was the only customer; I was either too early or too late.

There were actually only four choices. I chose noodle soba big but it turned out to be ramen with a big slab of meat on top.

I ate the vegetables beneath the meat while the husband and wife owners of the restaurant went back to watching TV and waiting for me to leave.

I finished quickly and got an ice cream from a convenience store. “Ahh convenience store food, I love you,” I said to the shelves of pre-packaged goodness. And as ramen and Ice Cream danced the diminishing dance of digestion in my stomach, I slept.