Gifu

We took a trip to Gifu, the prefecture to the east of Fukui to see some culture. Our main reason for going was to see the Takayama spring festival. We got derailed from going last year because of a car accident, so we were quite anxious to make it there in one piece. well, I was probably the only one who was worried.

Gifu is pretty famous for some villages in the Shirakawa-go. I think it means Shira river valley. but no research went into that assumption. These three villages are world heritage sites and are amazing because of their huge houses with thatched roofs. Apparently it's really expensive to thatch a roof, and you have to protect them against fire, huge amounts of snow, and various other things. Maintaining these houses is costly and requires the whole village to help each other out. So the tourist yen and government loans basically keep this village alive by helping to pay for re-thatching every 30 years. Otherwise it would just be metal buildings built to last 50 years at the most like the rest of boring, ugly Japan.


After going to the village, we visited a park devoted to preserving lots of different buildings. They were from lots of different parts of the region and used for many purposes. It was a bit more sterile than Shirakawago because there weren't bus loads of people, telephone wires, souvenir shops, cars and buses to be avoided, and annoying bullhorn messages all of the time. I liked both places, don't get me wrong. the real villages do feel lived in and constantly changing with the times - but seeing something a bit more peaceful was also nice.