Tuesday, November 6, 2007

5-6/11 Kyoto - Takayama

In the morning after a short breakfast we went to the silver temple. This temple has a stone garden and a plant garden as well. The stone garden is a creature out of very small stones which are organized in a way that it draws interesting patterns. Pictures hopefully tomorrow. Then we took a short walk in Gion, took our hand-lagguage, and made our way to Takayama.
Takayama is a small town in the Japaneese alps. The ride for the train from Nagoya took about two and a half hours. Incredible mountins, huge forests, and small rivers with waterfalls on the way. We found our minshuku (traditional japaneese hosting) easily in the chilly weather.

The day after (today) we got a japaneese-style breakfast. This means that we sat on pillows on the floor. On the table each of us had: salmon, rice, egg, tea, missu soup, vegetables, and a candle-heated system on which a leaf with a mix of souce, onion,and other stuff on it. According to the explanation we heated this stuff, put it on the rice, and ate. We also got some nuri with which we ate another kind of fish. That was a nice experience, hopefully pictures come tomorrow, or the day after.
During the day we toured the town all around. It has some neighborhoods of preserved private and merchant houses. Shrines and temples all around and beatyful coloured trees and leafes falling. We also saw a puppet show. These puppets are mechanical. They are contolled with ropes and they make funny movements. One of them even can write letters on a paper, and perform such kind of tasks.
Now we are back to the minshuku starting to think on dinner.

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