Sake with Nobuko

We are now in Takayama, a mountain town that is hosting a huge festival/parade today and tomorrow. It was a beautiful train ride to get here, first on the Shinkansen (high speed train) from Tokyo to Nagoya (we had a clear view of Mt. Fuji! A rare sight). And then (after meeting up with Koji and Nobuko in Nagoya) on a smaller train line up a beautiful valley to Takayama. The blue-green river rushed down the valley, and we crossed it multiple times as we ascended.

We walked around town as a group for a while, but then when Scott, Liv, Tor and Koji headed back to the hotels for a rest, Nobuko and I kept walking and window-shopping in the historic part of town, where the wooden buildings are absolutely lovely. We looked at some beautiful locally made lacquerware (I might have to buy something!), and checked out a miso shop.

Finally, we found ourselves in front of a sake factory where they offered small tastes for free. They also offered a larger cup of their freshest sake for 150 yen (less than $2.00). Nobuko isn't much of a drinker (though she did have a small taste), but I bought a cup and they directed us to a lovely room with benches around a hibachi. A hibachi is a square table with a sunken copper center where coals burn to keep the room warm. A lovely kettle was hanging over the coals. Nobuko said that when she was a young girl, a hibachi of this kind was the only heat in her house. And when she married, her father told her that she would need hibachis, so she still has two of them. One she uses as a flowerpot (!) and the other is stored under the stairs. It's not a valuable antique yet, she says, but perhaps it will be one day. As we talked beside the hibachi, I couldn't help wishing there were more rooms heated this way even today. Oddly, the coals created no smoke in the room.