A MONTH IN JAPAN – TOYAMA AND TAKAYAMA, NOVEMBER 10-11, 2025

November 10, 2025 – Toyama and Takayama

Somehow, despite having more than enough time, we arrived at Ueno Station in Tokyo less than one minute after the scheduled departure time of the Shinkansen to our next destination, Takayama.  Frantic, we looked for a station agent; he reassured us that we could use our ticket on the next Shinkansen.  That was the good news.  The bad news was that we would miss our connecting train in Toyama, which threw off our scheduled arrival time in Takayama.  This, however, turned out to be a blessing in disguise.

Tip:  The Shinkansen bullet trains wait for no man. They arrive and depart from train stations, unloading and loading passengers in 60 to 120 seconds, depending on the size of the station, so get to the track and find your carriage location well ahead of departure time. 

Toyama

Toyama is about two hours by bullet train from Tokyo and sits on Toyama Bay northwest of the capital.  Being a port, it was heavily bombed in World War II, suffering the most damage of any town in Japan besides Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  You’d never know it today.   

We had a couple of hours to kill in Toyama before picking up our connecting commuter train to Takayama.  Although not on our itinerary, surely we’d discover something worth seeing on a walk through town.  We found a storage locker at the station for 800 ¥, and I went off in search of change at the 7-11.  Coins in hand, I was on my way back to the locker when the 7-11 cashier, a gentleman several years beyond retirement age in the US or Europe, came running after me, waving the 100 ¥ coin I had inadvertently left in the change machine.  This would never happen in Berlin.   

Luggage-free, we set off on an unplanned adventure.

• Azumi Castle

Built in 1543, the castle (above) and its surrounding land, located on the banks of the Jinzu River, are maintained as a public park by the Japanese government.  According to Wiki:

The castle site was also ground zero for the Toyama Air Raid of August 2, 1945. A faux reproduction of the donjon of Toyama Castle was built in 1954 in ferro-concrete, and houses the Toyama Local History Museum and the Sato Memorial Art Museum, noted for its collection of utensils for tea ceremonies and antiques. The only original structures of the castle which have survived are one gate (the Chiyoda Gate) and discontinuous portions of the original moats and stoneworks. 

We didn’t have time to go inside the castle but we did walk in the garden. 

On our way back to the station, we saw gardeners winterizing azalea bushes with bamboo  in front of an office tower.

The leaves of the cherry trees in the station plaza were the color of persimmons.

Toyama is known for its fresh catch, and we spent our remaining time enjoying some seafood in a small cafe inside the station.  Red snow crabs had just come into season.

A man at a stainless prep table in the cafe was gutting and filleting a big tuna.

The couple at the next table ordered sashimi.  I asked if I could take a photo and the man replied, "Absolutely!"

Takayama

Takayama is about an hour and a half inland by commuter train from Toyama.  

It sits on a plateau in Japan's Hida Mountains, sometimes called the Northern Japan Alps, at an elevation ca. 573 meters (about 1,880 feet) above sea level.  When we arrived at Takayama Station in the early evening, it was already pretty cold.  

• Ichinomatsu Japanese Modern Hotel

We made our way to the Ichinomatsu Japanese Modern Hotel on foot, where we were booked for two nights.  We were looking forward to this stay, as the hotel had an onsen, a natural hot springs bath, our first of the trip.  We signed up for the 10 pm time slot.

We couldn't see much of the hotel in the dark, but the next morning revealed its windowed breakfast room (left below), landscaped Japanese garden, and onsen (the building to the right in the second photo below).  

• Matsuki-Ushi

The desk clerk had suggested Matsuki-Ushi, a Japanese steakhouse only a couple of blocks from the station, for dinner.  He recommended we try the local specialty:  Hida beef, that heavily marbled and extremely tender cousin of Kobe.

Matsuki-Ushi was full of foreigners when we got there, which means it’s probably on Tripadvisor.  Several shouting English-speakers were seated at the sushi counter, knocking back half-liters of Japanese beer.  Confused by sushi in a steakhouse, we ordered what the visitors from London sitting next to us ordered—sushi/sashimi and grilled beef combo, which could not be ordered separately.  It was waaaay too much food but really excellent.

Back at the Ichinomatsu Japanese Modern Hotel, we slipped into our hotel-issued pajamas and quilted jackets and headed to the onsen.  We had it all to ourselves for 30 minutes.  Sorry.  No photos of sagging septuagenarian flesh available.   

November 11, 2025 – Takayama

This was our first experience with a traditional Japanese breakfast--sweet scrambled eggs, smoked fish, miso soup, stewed vegetables, pickles, ginger, rice, and mochi.

It was really cold that morning, even with layers, hats, and gloves.  From the top floor of the train station we could see snow on the Hida mountains.  No wonder the cattle have to fatten up! Fortunately, it warmed up quickly as we made our way to our first stop.

Sakurayama Hachiman Shrine 

The shrine can be a bit confusing, composed as it is of several buildings on a hill, including the Assembly Hall of Festival Floats, the small Soo-in Temple, and the larger Hachiman shrine building itself.  We started at the Assembly Hall.

•  Assembly Hall of Festival Floats

The Takayama matsuri is a colorful, two-day procession of yatai (lavishly decorated floats) that takes place in May and again in October each year.  The parade, dating back 350 years, winds through the streets, the floats accompanied by sacred music and carrying lanterns lit at night.  The Assembly Hall has a rotating display of the floats, some of them dating to the 17th c. and measuring more than three stories tall.  They feature elaborate carvings, silk embroideries, puppets, lacquering, and unbelievable craftsmanship.  

Here are two of the dozen floats we saw that day, including some extraordinary carvings. 

 

 

The exhibit also featured the Hachiman mikoshi (a portable shrine) described and pictured below.  The text is illustrative of the human toll of World War II.

 

•  Hachiman Shrine

Up a stone stair from the Assembly Hall of Festival Floats

are the main Hachiman shrine buildings, surrounded by cedar forest and deciduous trees.  The Japanese maples were on fire. 

This is the main Hachiman shrine building and the small Soo-in Shrine is below. 

 

Returning to the walking tour habit we established in Tokyo, we consulted Lonely Planet Guide to Japan:

...Takayama’s main appeal is simply strolling its historical streetscapes, soaking up Edo-era atmosphere with wooden merchant houses, sake breweries and ornate bridges over its pretty Miyagawa River.   

The Guide led us to 

• Kusakabe Mingei-kan Heritage House

The current house was rebuilt in 1879 in the Edo style.  According to the tourist brochure:

The Kusakabe house has many characteristics of Edo architecture:  the main part of the building has two-stories and a stairwell, all made of Japanese Cypress (Hinoki); the combination of beams and pillars leads a strong construction; the roof slants slightly with moderate eaves; the window has several slender lattice works (Koushi); it is finished with a dark-brown paint made from soot.  In addition, there are two warehouses made of mud and soil.

 

Note that the sole source of heat for the house is a hibachi (charcoal brazier) on the ground floor, around which people sat and brewed tea.  These interiors must have been freezing.  When we asked a guide how people managed, she said that they had a Zen acceptance of the seasons, “Winter is supposed to be cold.” 

• Funasaka Sake Brewery

This part of town along the Miyagawa River was crowded with tourists window shopping and sake tasting.  We ducked into Funasaka Sake Brewery where, for 500 ¥ each, we got sake cups and the opportunity to taste various types of sake, from sweet to dry and light to heavy. 

 

The cups have a story:

Kikichoko is a white sake tasting cup usually made of porcelain. When you taste sake while visiting a sake brewery, you are often served one of these white cups with blue rings at the bottom. The cup you see here is called a “Kikichoko” (sake tasting cup) or “Janome Ochoko” (snake eye cup). This blue ringed design is known as a snake eye, what we would call a bull’s eye. The purpose of these contrasting rings was originally to help assess the clarity of the sake by looking at the crisp border between the blue and white areas. The pure white part of the cup also allows you to check the overall color tint of the sake. 

• Miffy Kitchen

At Miffy Kitchen, we bought a gift for our cat sitter and I bought a Miffy in kimono dress to keep the weird alien monkey with headphones hanging off my purse company. 

• Miyagawa River

The morning market sets up along the river, on the square in front of the Takayama Jinya, but we would save that for tomorrow’s sights.  Today we simply enjoyed the bronze statue of Ashinaga-zo (long legs) waiving to Tenaga-zo (long arms) on the other side of the Kaji-bashi bridge over the Miyagawa River.  In Japanese folklore, the pair work together to catch fish, with Tenaga-zo standing on Ashinaga-zo's back, using his long arms to reach into the river while Ashinaga-zo's long legs keep them both above the river's surface.

Keep it real!  And rake your leaves like this.

Marilyn