including the brilliant Hakone Open Air Museum (page 107) and the volcanic Owakudani Valley with its steaming sulfur vents and hot springs.
If you want a really close look at Fuji, you can even climb it in the summer months, although it is a long challenging hike. However, you don’t need to venture out of Tokyo to get a good view. On a clear day, head up to the free observation deck on the 45th floor of Tokyo Metropolitan Government building in Shinjuku (page 34) and Fuji-san reveals all her wonder.
Getting There The Hakone area is served by Hakone-Yumoto Station, which can be reached on the Odakyu Line from Shinjuku Station in Tokyo in 80 minutes. Contact Hakone Town Tourist Association: hakone.or.jp/english
7 Traditional Houses of Shirakawa-go
Head back in time to the villages of the Hida Highlands
Seeing Ogimachi village for the first time, it’s easy to imagine you are looking upon a scene unchanged for centuries. The village is one of several in the Shirakawa-go region in the Hida Highlands (page 46) that is still dominated by towering thatched farmhouses that blend with a carpet of lush green rice paddies and a backdrop of dense forest to create a scene that could be straight from a Brothers’ Grimm tale. There’s good reason these villages have barely changed over the centuries. Less than a hundred years ago, the densely forested valleys here were among the most secluded in Japan. Heavy snowfall and a lack of road connections left the area’s villages cut off from modernization.
The gassho-zukuri name given to the farmhouses comes from their sloping A-shaped roofs. Designed much like those in Scandinavia to stop snow accumulating in the harsh winter months, they are said to resemble hands in prayer (gassho). The distinctive thatched houses also reveal much about the traditional lifestyle of the area. Sometimes reaching up to five floors in height, they can house several generations of a family, and in some cases more than a single family, and allow enough space for indoor cultivation. Taking advantage of the heat rising from the living quarters down below, often the upper floors are used for the raising of silkworms.
All seasons provide a stunning backdrop to these isolated mountain villages. Because of the highly flammable nature of the structures, on the last Sunday in October the local fire departments hose down the straw roofs after the parching sun of summer. In winter, when the roofs seem to support more snow than it is possible, the interiors are lighted and snow-covered pathways are lantern-lit to allow visitors to carefully wend their way and imagination into a lifestyle that is virtually unthinkable, a time when people lived merely inside, a few degrees warmer than outside.
Ainokura, another gasho-zukuri village, is about an hour’s ride north with fewer homes but also far fewer tourists. The setting is just as majestic but access is less convenient.
Getting There Shirakawa-go can be accessed via Nagoya, from where it is just over 2 hours on the JR Takayama Line to Takayama Station. Buses that run to Shirakawa-go take 50 minutes. Also accessed by a 90-minute bus ride from Kanazawa. See online timetable: japan-guide.com/bus/shirakawa-go.html Contact Shirakawa Village Office: shirakawa-go.org/english
8 Kanazawa Castle and Kenroku-en
A traditional castle town on Japan’s western shore
All that glitters in this city is gold, a city whose wealth was dug out of the gold mines of Sado Island and put to good use arming one of Japan’s most powerful clans. Pre-modern cities were built around her temples, shrines, ports and castles. Kanazawa (page 42) is one of Japan’s best examples of a castle town with its scattering of warrior homes and the artisans who provided objects of beauty for its residents.
A new Shinkansen train barrels into Kanazawa Station from Tokyo in two and a half hours, bringing an infusion of tourists and their appetites. The station and its massive glass and steel dome displays a unique hand-crafted wooden gate that resembles a traditional hand drum.
Located on a slight rise in the center of the city, Kanazawa Castle offers a view of Lord Maeda’s domain and the ridge of mountains that foiled any attack upon his well-armed and faithful warriors. The castle walls are a sparkling white, matching the snowy peaks in the distance a good five months of the year.
Lord Maeda’s wealth came not only from its gold reserves but also from shipping. The port provided the townspeople with many of the refined goods that came from Kyoto, carrying back the sea products that abound in these waters.
The garden that adjoins Kanazawa Castle is ranked as one of the top three gardens of Japan. Opened to the public in 1874, Kenroku-en is expansive and beautifully maintained, with glorious ponds and some of the most pampered pine trees one will find anywhere. The seasonal floral display is well depicted on the information board inside.
Speaking of the rich bounty of seafood lavished upon its citizens, Kanazawa’s Omi-cho market is a kaleidoscope of color, aromas and tastes, capable of pleasing everyone who wishes to sample the delicacies on display in its busy shops.
Kanazawa Castle Park Open 9 a.m. to 4.30 p.m. year round. Getting There A 5-minute walk from the Kenrokuen bus stop or a 15-minute bus ride from Kanazawa JR Station. Contact www.pref.ishikawa.jp/siro-niwa/kanazawajou/ Admission Fee ¥310; children ¥100; over 65 years of age free. Kenroku-en Park Open 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. Getting There Take the Loop Line bus from Kanazawa Station. Contact pref.ishikawa.jp/siro-niwa/Kenroku-en/index.html/ Admission Fee ¥310
9 Kinkaku-ji Temple, Kyoto
The quintessential “Golden Pavilion” of historic Kyoto
Few sights in Japan are as iconic as the golden reflection of Kinkaku-ji (Temple of the Golden Pavilion) shimmering on the still waters of Kyoko-chi (Mirror Pond) that heightens its beauty.
The pure gold leaf coating the top two floors of the three-story building is what sends the hordes of visitors to Kinkaku-ji into a photographic frenzy, but pause a while to study the structure and you notice that there is far more to Kinkaku-ji than its gilding. Each floor is in a different but complementary architectural style. The first is in the shinden-zukuri style common to Heian (11th-century) imperial aristocracy; the second in the style of warrior aristocrats, or buke-zukuri; and the third in traditional Chinese cha’an style.
As stunning a sight as Kinkaku-ji is, many visitors are surprised to learn that the temple building is actually a modern reconstruction. The original, built in 1397 as part of a retirement villa for shogun Ashikaga Yoshimitsu and then converted into a Zen temple upon his death, was burned to the ground by a young monk (whose possible motives and internal strife were the subject of Yukio Mishima’s 1956 novel, Temple of the Golden Pavilion) in 1950. By 1955
