4/23/08 Takayama

Took a 45 minute bullet train ride to Nagoya and then boarded the train for Takayama. Actually typing this up on the train. The ride itself is quite stunning as we are passing through mountains and valleys- the train is literally passing through mountains (I think as we go through some big tunnels). Takayama is in the Hida district which is a mountainous area bordering the Japanese Alps. Hida is famous for Hida beef- in the US we only hear about Kobe beef but there are other similar styles of beef that are well known in Japan.

I am staying at Hida Takayama Temple Inn Zenko-ji www.geocities.jp/zenkojitakayama. It’s actually a Zen temple that functions as a hostel/Inn which is pretty common in Japan. The monk that runs it speaks great English so I chatted with him about it for a while. What he said was that there most Japanese don’t go to Temples often as they have small altars in their homes and that most of them don’t practice meditation. So what this means is that the temples are often empty. I requested my own room which he accommodated- I was in a living room on the second floor with a very comfortable futon on the floor that had an electric mattress pad. For 30 bucks a night it was a steal. I spend the afternoon wandering around older section of the town which has lots of traditional wooden buildings and houses- narrow quant streets with shops, miso factories, and sake breweries. It is really nice. I sampled some Hida beef on a stick which was quite nice. I also had grilled mochi balls that had a soy sauce on them and a type of rice that was mashed up and then grilled (kind of like a hash brown on a stick) that had a rich soy based sauce on it that was fantastic.

Since I haven’t been to a sake brewery I was excited to check them out. They don’t make it during this time of year but you can still go in and see some of the large barrels and taste their sake. Unfortunately I didn’t like most of the ones I tasted. Their was sort of moldy/cheesy flavor to them. I tried some higher end daigninjo that was good but not worth buying and carrying around.

I then headed to a hotel nearby that has a great onsen that you can use for 10 dollars- sauna, 2 indoor baths, and 2 outdoor baths in stunning garden. After that I headed to dinner and met up with a couple I had met in Kyoto and coincidentally ran into here. We headed to a steak place that had an attached butcher shop. We both opted for the (43 dollar) Hida sirloin. It is brought to you sliced and you cook it yourself on the table. As you can see from the picture it is VERY fatty. It is sort of like eating a whole steak that is composed of the fatty portion of a steak- although tasty it’s too fatty to be eaten by itself- would have been a better choice to get shabu shabu or sukiyaki. We headed to a local bar that had a bartender who spoke great English and knew a lot about sake. We had fun swapping travel stories and chatting about work and career stuff- they both work for Price Waterhouse Cooper as consultants.