Takayama, Japan
Travelling to Takayama, nestled away in the Japanese Alps, meant taking a trip on Japan’s famous bullet train – the shinkansen. You hear a lot about the shinkansen, and it’s one of those rare things that’s even better in real life than you could imagine.
When you arrive at the shinkansen station, your ticket tells you which door you need to board at. Then when it’s time to board (and shinkansen trains are almost never late), there are markings along the platform telling you exactly where your door will be. When you board your train, the seats are extremely comfortable, like a premium economy flight, with plenty of legroom, a comfortable chair, and porthole-type windows. And this bit is obvious, but they’re incredibly quick. I downloaded a speedometer app on my phone, and can confirm they went at well over 190 mph.
In summary, they’re fast, efficient, green, and relatively affordable. Everything a train system should be – I can’t see any reason people would bother catching a domestic flight in Japan when the trains are this good. I had a brilliant time sitting on the line between Hakone and Takayama, reading Tokyo Express by Seich? Matsumoto, tucking into my bento box and watching rural Japan slide by at warp speed. In the distance, the snowy peak of Mount Fuji. It really is the way to travel.
After an hour and a half, we arrived at Nagano, and changed to a little branch line train that climbed high into the mountains to Takayama, in the Hida Prefecture, which is meant to be one of the more scenic train journeys in Japan. We wound our way through the valleys of the Japanese Alps, the trees turning increasingly autumnal as the train climbed higher. We then caught a bus from Takayama Station up the hill to our accommodation for the next few days; a paper-walled spare room in the house of a chap called Marumatsu.
Part of the reason for our trip to Takayama was to see the autumn foliage. Climate change means this is increasingly hard to predict, but its altitude in the Japanese Alps means the air is colder, and the leaves change colour earlier in the year. We got lucky, and the hills of Hida were covered in a sea of vivid red, orange and yellow foliage. Different trees’ leaves change at different rates, and to different shades, leaving the hillside a magnificent patchwork of autumn colours.
Trees aside, I was less keen on the rest of the wildlife in Takayama. A few years ago, a rogue bear had maimed a load of people at a bus stop in the town. For some reason, this had concerned me more than I’d expected, so I had picked up a can of bear spray at Nagano station to buy us some time when the bears inevitably attacked. I read the instructions thoroughly, and had the spray holstered ready to deploy every time we headed out to look at the autumn trees.
As well as herds of vicious bears, Takayama is home to several sake breweries, and we visited one for a short and confusing tasting, taking our small glasses and sake tokens around the tap room (or whatever it’s called for sake), and trying a range of different types. There was a surprisingly wide range on offer, with some quite syrupy and sweet, while others were a little more savoury and smooth. I quite like sake, and despite having had it warm, cold, with food and without, I still don’t have a clue how you’re actually meant to drink it.
Takayama is also apparently famous for its apples, and Nicola dutifully got stuck in at the fruit market, spending a good chunk of our daily budget on one solitary apple – far more than we’d spent on the sake. As she crunched away, she did say it was a lovely apple, so it was probably worth it.
That evening we were walking up the hill back to Marumatsu’s house, when without warning, the funnel-shaped loudspeakers mounted on every other lamppost started playing music. I obviously assumed it was the bear alarm. But we researched it later, and apparently they test the emergency alert siren at 5pm on certain days. As the music wafted over the rooftops of Takayama we looked back down over the town and decided that it’s a very nice place indeed.
The wider area of Hida is also beautiful, so early one morning we caught a small train from Takayama to a little neighbouring village called Hida Furukawa. This tranquil village is tiny, picturesque and easily one of the most relaxing places I have ever been. The streets are lined with traditional Japanese wooden houses, their square white cars neatly parked in tidy car ports. But here’s the unusual part: the streets are divided in two, with one half for pedestrians, and the other half reserved for fish. A small canal runs along every street, and seems to be mainly used by koi carp, who gently swim down the street alongside human pedestrians.
We had the village almost entirely to ourselves, and after exploring the village and marvelling at the canals of fish, we stopped at a little kiosk for lunch. We each bought a little charcoal bread bun filled with Hida beef, a local delicacy, and sat under a gingko tree as its bright yellow autumn leaves fluttered to the ground around us. It was idyllic, and I’ve never felt so calm.
On our final day back in Takayama, we set off up the small wooded hill that overlooked the town to take a last look at the autumn leaves. We were walking along a gravel trail through red maples when we came across a barrier and a sign declaring the footpath closed due to ‘recent bear activity’.
Part of me felt fully prepared with my bear spray, but maybe I’d relaxed after visiting Hida Furukawa, as a bigger part of me was disappointed that we didn’t see a bear. Sure, they can be vicious, but they’re also pretty majestic wild animals and it’d be incredible to see one walking around in the forest. Our big trip around the world was a chance to get out of our comfort zones, and I was surprised by how quickly mine was changing.
I left the bear spray in a drawer at Marumatsu’s house for another wary traveller, and we caught the train down the valley to Nagano, ready to board a shinkansen for our next stop, Hiroshima.
