Here's to going back in time

This morning, we woke up at 8 am for breakfast and left for the Hida Folk Museum. This was a cool place because the houses were preserved from the 1700’s and onward. When we first entered, we were able to play with some toys that children played with. It was fun, especially when we tried walking in the stilts. That was a real challenge. A few of us were also able to take some Japanese umbrellas and walk around with them to block out the sun. As we walked around and explored the houses, I was fascinated by the straw roofs. I asked the group how long they thought it took to build one of these roofs and Jill said she did a presentation on them and said it took a day. When a family needed a roof to be added on, the entire community came and helped and finished it within a day. I was highly impressed by not only the fact that it took a day, but the idea that everyone came together to help one another in a time of need. I wish the atmosphere was like that in America. In most of the houses that we went into, we had to take off our shoes and walk around in slippers. Everything looked so polished and cleaned. I was also impressed by the amount of room each house held as well as how tiny everything was. The houses also showed that the Japanese sat on the ground for everything as well. It was cool to see that many of their traditions still exist today. As we were getting ready to leave, there were baby ducks sitting out front. It was really funny because Julia picked one of them up, and the duck pooped on her. She was able to wipe everything off her hand, but she didn’t realize there was still some stuck to her t-shirt when we got back to the bus. I had to be a good friend and tell her.

Ringing the bell

Just look at that roof!

Time for a group photo

When we arrived back to the hotel, majority of the group walked back into town to do some exploring and shopping. I went with Mioko, Julia, Day, and Leo. We went into a couple shops and looked around. In one of the stores, we looked at Sakai and I was surprised to see a bottle that was worth 210,000 yen. That’s an enormous amount of money just for alcohol. We also found a jewelry store that had a lot of handmade stuff. I was really shocked to see the different types of color combinations that some of the jewelry had. Anyway, in one of the gift shops, I ended up buying a little devil looking thing that is supposedly the mascot of the area. Mioko told me it was to keep the bad spirits away so I bought two because I definitely need that on the reservation for when I go home. When I got back to the hotel, I took another bath with Day. I love the bath because it is so relaxing and I feel so refreshed. After that, we had dinner in our kimonos again where a lot of food was served. The food was really good again where most of it was seafood. That was basically the end of the night. I went back up to my room, played on my laptop, and called it a night.

Little puppy we saw walking around

A street in Takayama