World Heritage Village

 We stopped off at this heritage village, many of the surrounding villages had been submerged by dam waters. We parked up after paying the 500 yen, only payment required and took the elevator down two flights and along a shaft before walking through the village. People live here, some work away and some have small stalls.

There was a shrine as well as a small folklore museum.

Warren sitting on the bank in the car park.

The shaft or corridor after going down in the lift.

The entrance or exit from the shaft, I wondered if it was left over from war time.

A little car in a garage,not sure of the make but it had what looked like rabbit ears as a badge.

All rooves were thatched

Many Japanese were taking the reflections in the water so I followed suit.

A house and store.

Sumo wrestling

 We did consider going to a sumo practise then discovered that it was one to two hours of sitting still, cross-legged on the floor. Couldn't sit when straight legs or even stretch them as showing the soles of the feet to a sumo is disrespectful. That was enough to put us off going.

But as it happens, there has been a tournament in Tokyo and it's been televised. Did some research and discovered lots of different things about sumo.

Tournaments are fifteen days and wrestlers would have one match each day, there is about eight levels and they progress from one level to another depending on how many bouts they win. Although there is a weight and height requirement to go into the rin, unlike boxing there is no weight or height in the levels.

Bouts are four minutes each although most only last a few seconds, they must get their

opponents either out of the ring or part of their body to touch the ground.

We watched a few afternoons and got to recognise some of them.

Taken from the TV.

Second day of driving

 We went East, first day was north.

Coffee was at a thatched roof village, it was very quiet and the coffee place was closed,lots of businesses don't open until 10am. Cafe opened at 10.30am,no english but he did have an English menu.

Very pretty and green, apparently they do get snow,hence the thatched rooves.

,

Country driving

 John hired a car and we all went driving for two days

Different looking houses

Stopped at a roadside toilet with park benches overlooking the country. The above is an ashtray. There is no smoking on the streets.

Panel on the wall for the toilet

Doubled back to see this tunnel and rock formation

Reminded me of the Great Ocean road

Lunch at a cafe, we ordered spaghetti, I had a milkshake, then owner came out with the green cake on the house. It was a speciality of the town apparently, it is a herb similar looking like mint.

Kimono centre

 We took a bus, the loop bus, to the gardens. Brilliant concept. There are two buses, a red and a green bus, they each do a loop of the city, stopping at different points along the way. One goes left and the other the red, goes to the right. First day we bought an all day pass for 600yen,otherwise each trip was 200 yen. Alight in the middle of the bus and get off at the front either showing the driver the all day pass ticket or money to go into the slot.

Amazing that payment isn't until the end. But I digress, we got off at the gardens and using my GPS on the phone, we walked the 140m to the kimono centre. We could have just gone downstairs with the things for sale, that was free, we wanted to see the actual outfits so 310 yen it was.

These were on display and could have been rented for photos.

Four panels that had be painted and drying on bamboo canes. There was 12 metres in a kimono

The pots of paint  and brushes used.

The autumn leaves had some of them outlined in gold thread.

There are usually ten procedures and can take up to three months to make a kimono, heaven's knows what the price would be.

Gold leaf museum

 This was just along from the Geisha house. Lots to see here and all within walking distance. We had walked up, not really up from the hotel, it was about 800m on the bus loop road. On the way we found the phonographic museum with the dog and the Grammer phone.

Also saw a guy who was making wood things.

This was a set of postcards with wood cravings on them.

This was the street that he was on, shop at the front living quarters behind and up.

Outside his store, the bonsai was real.

Gold leaf table and chairs, could sit at them

The gold is put between sheets of washi paper then pounded to make it bigger, done several times.

We could have bought gold leaf ice creams in the street behind, looked impressive but I couldn't imagine eating gold, price was 700yen, without the gold it was 400yen.

This is a replica of a small shrine with gold leaf on it.

Geisha house

 We visited a Geisha house,didn't see any but saw a movie about them. During summer months they do performances each Saturday night but not while we were here.

This is just a print of them.

A mock up of the houses that some live in,more like a communal village.

One of the kimonos

Another photo.

I found it a little disappointing that there was so little. We had to take our shoes off, I was wearing sandals but had taken socks to put on. Up the red staircase, not sure why but I had read before that it's always a red staircase. There were pillows on the floor to sit or very low chairs while we watched the movie. It showed a couple of the games and music that they can perform.

Cost was 400yen or 300 if over 65, so we paid just over $3.

 Re

University of Tokyo

 We walked up here only a two k walk.

The red door entrance 

Main gate

Very impressive,ended up walking right this building, don't know what it was but there was a guard at the front of it.

A pond tucked away in the grounds

The professor and his dog reunited. 

These workers appeared to be having instructions on how to sweep,

Gut on the left was giving a demonstration then they all went to a small area to practise 🧹 sweeping.

Walking to the uni, we saw a lady vaccuming the pavement.

Kanazawa

 Three hours west of Tokyo, it's a small city but a real tourist town. There is a hop on hop off bus, two routes, one goes clockwise and the other anticlock wise. 600yen for an all day pass or 200 yen for one fare. $7.05 or $2.20 approx.

We went all the way around at first then got off at the train station to buy our tickets for Friday, heading then to Kyoto. Morning tea at a German bakehouse then line up for another bus trip. Alighted at the gardens and castle, one is one side of the road and one the other.

We selected to go through the castle grounds

Very green

Saw some women wearing kimonos while waiting for the bus.

Found a cache

Nice park to walk through, we walked back to hotel.