In this video, I am showing my trip to Shirakawa-go, one of the UNESCO heritage sites in Japan, where the traditional houses of "Gassho-zukuri" are still preserved. you can get the feel of visiting traditional village.
For more details of the Shirakawa-go village and public transportations to get there, please refer to these websites:
In my Channel, I show step by step of alternative but authentic Japanese home cooking, which can be made with the ingredients that are easily available outside of Japan.
00:00 Intro 01:01 Bus trip to Shirakawago 01:46 Getting to the observation point 02:54 Visiting Shinto Shrine 03:56 Walking around Shirakawago 05:18 Getting lunch with Hida beef 06:52 Visiting WADA house 10:30 Getting Croquette for snack 11:20 Souvenir shops 12:52 Going back to Nagoya 13:18 Behind the camera
Welcome to Saju's Kitchen.
Today I'm going to show you Shirakawa-go.
So today I'm in a small village called Shirakawa-go,
which is located right in the center of Japan,
up in the mountains of Gifu Prefecture.
Like I showed in the videos of geography,
there are many places in Japan that snows a lot,
and Shirakawa-go is one of them.
And because of this heavy snow,
Shirakawa-go has these special houses
called gassho-zukuri.
This Shirakawa-go village is also acknowledged
as a UNESCO heritage site,
and thought it might be interesting to show you
these special traditional houses.
It takes about two and a half hours from Nagoya,
and from Tokyo it takes about five hours,
so it might be worth considering as a destination
when you have a chance to visit Japan in the winter.
Then, without further ado, let's get started.
To get to Shirakawa-go from Nagoya,
it's best to take the highway bus.
Depending on the season, it might be fully booked,
so you might need to reserve it beforehand,
which you can do online, of course in English as well.
From Tokyo or Osaka, with trains and buses,
it takes about five hours or so.
The buses will arrive next to the information center,
where you can get a map of the whole village.
These are in Japanese, but of course,
you can get them in English as well.
There's a shuttle service going up to the observation point,
and these buses will leave every 20 minutes,
where you can get the overview of the whole village.
From up there, you can see the whole village,
so I recommend doing that
as the first thing you get to Shirakawa-go,
so you can get the overview of the place.
You can also walk this up,
which takes about 15 minutes or so.
Today, I decided to take the walking path going down.
Up in the left corner is the observation point,
and then I walk this path going down.
Along the road, I found this beautiful small Shinto shrine,
so I had to take a visit, especially with New Year's.
When you walk around the Shirakawa-go,
you'll find these small house-like objects,
and perhaps wonder what they are.
These are water hoses in order to prevent
burning down of the national treasures,
because these traditional houses
are made of natural materials and vulnerable to fire.
In many places throughout the village,
there are small cafes like this to rest.
When you walk down the village, there's a big bridge,
and the view from there is quite beautiful.
And on the other side of the bridge,
there's a big parking lot for those people
who come by cars.
And then I found this nice restaurant
where they serve local dishes.
This place was quite technologically advanced,
so I had to order online with a QR code.
I got myself a local dish of hoba miso with hira beef.
This is cooked right in front of me,
along with some other local dishes.
This is sweet miso paste cooked over the leaf of magnolia,
a regional recipe of this area.
You can see how much marble fat this hira beef has.
This sweet miso flavor was a perfect pair for this rice.
Please excuse me for the slurping.
This hira beef was so delicious,
especially with the sweet miso paste.
Gochisousamadeshita.
Gochisousamadesu.
Arigatou gozaimasu.
That will be 2,300 yen.
Gochisousamadeshita.
Arigatou gozaimashita.
Then I made a visit to one of the gassho-zukuri houses.
As these are someone's homes,
we have to take off our shoes, of course.
They were also showing how these houses were built.
It was quite a large project.
It takes more than hundreds of people
just to redo their gassho-zukuri roofs.
As I mentioned, this is someone's home,
so please be respectful when visiting.
Here they had a kamidana,
a small altar where the house god lives.
And this is also a very typical zashiki,
a traditional Japanese reception room.
And they also had a large Buddhist altar
where typically the ancestors are placed.
Once you get to the upstairs,
you can see the backside
of how the gassho-zukuri roofs are built.
They were also presenting a sericulture,
a production of silk,
since this was the main industry of the village
in the old days.
And they also had these old machines,
which I myself have only seen in the history books.
These are machines to make ropes out of rice straw,
just like these.
Then these rice straw ropes can be made into mats
called mushiro, looking like these,
which was very often used in the old days also.
Between the first and second floor,
they had a storage room
where they had the old kitchenware and such.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
By the way, Shirakawa-go is also quite very beautiful
in other seasons.
You can enjoy the fresh green
or cherry blossom in the spring,
full green and grown rice fields of the summer,
or colored leaves of the autumn,
and also the stars are quite very beautiful in the nights.
But I think still,
winter is the best season to visit.
As I was walking down the street,
I found this small stream or gutter or whatever that is,
and there were some fish inside, surprisingly.
These are rainbow trouts and carps,
which are both specialty of this area.
Then I was getting a bit hungry,
so I got myself some snack,
Hida beef croquettes.
In this cold weather, the hot croquette was perfect.
Croquette is, by the way, quite popular meal,
but also a good snack in Japan.
By the way,
if you decide to come to Shirakawa-go in the winter,
you definitely need to wear some waterproof shoes,
like me,
since you'll be walking in the snow or puddles.
But don't worry,
you can get some of these rain boots
at the many other souvenir shops of the village.
And the village also have many souvenir shops
where they sell local goods or representing the region,
and of course, regional foods or snacks.
Near the bus station,
there's an onsen, a bathhouse.
But unfortunately, it was closed when I visited there,
because it was still in the new years.
But it would be a great place to rest your body
in a warm bath with some healing minerals.
It was time to go home.
The bus was also full,
so you gotta book the round trip,
otherwise you won't be able to go back.
By the way,
it is also possible to stay
at one of those gassho-zukuri houses.
It's also quite a very nice experience
to stay in those traditional houses.
Thank you very much for watching,
and see you in the next video.
Bye.
I got you, I told you.
