高山/ Takayama

In 高山 there was a large 祭り(festival) going on and it was sosoooooooooo packed.  The Spring festival.

Here is a short description of this festival;

"The charming old city of Takayama has two famous festivals, one at the height of the autumn colours and this slightly larger one at cherry blossom time. If your idea of a 'float' is something stuck on the back of a truck, check out these extraordinary pieces of mobile architecture. When the festival began in the 17th century, the wealthy merchants and famously skilled craftsmen of the region were not permitted to put their wealth into houses as that would have shown up the samurai class, but nothing could stop them from constructing these gloriously showy floats. This is the annual festival of the Hie Jinja, which serves the southern half of Takayama, whereas the autumn festival belongs to Sakurayama Hachimangu Shrine in the north of " (found on iexplore.com)

Here are some pics from the festival and the town (besides sakura. . . .well, there may be so more sakura pics.  I can't help myself.)

We arrived at night and there were booths all lit up.  It was nice to go to these night festival events because it reminded me of 花火, firework festival, in August.  

This pictures makes me think of watching anime as a kid and watching little kids try to catch as many goldfish as they could.  

You pay about 300 yen and you get a little hoop with a thin piece of paper covering the hoop.  The point of the game is pick up as many fish as possible before a hole breaks through it.

In the morning we headed to the morning arts and crafts market that ran along the riverside.  

At the market there was a lot of wood work, native Japanese dolls, and all kinds of foods being sold.

Here my dad and I are eating probably the biggest and best 肉まん, meat bun. It was his first time eating a 肉まん in Japan.

Mom eating ころっけ　(it's mashed potato that is fried).

In this small mountain town there were TONS of traditional Japanese foods like; だんご、ころっけ、せんべい。

Here is one of the many floats and actually on the front there is a marionette.  

Here you can see the marionette on the front.  One of these marionettes can have up to 36 strings manned by up to 8 people.

Here is a home of one of these floats.

高山 is also famous for having old buildings from the Edo period (like Kyoto)

The sake houses were known for the huge cedar balls out front.

Mom and I enjoyed all the little stores in　高山 but Dad and G-ma were less then enthused at stopping at every store.  Luckily there were benches along the way.

Here is some more buildings.

We went into a big house that was preserved from the Edo period.  It was pretty cool to see how they lived back then in Japan.  In the courtyard area they served free せんべい、which are rice cakes, and green tea.

Here is an old time way of traveling.  Seriously, the tiniest vehicle but then again back then people were pretty small.

Well, photobucket is giving me grief so I'll update on Takayama later.