Tour to Gifu

“ "Today we head deep into Gifu, but not before making a quick visit to the famous/infamous Tagata Jinja and Oagata Jinja near Komaki in Aichi. From here we head to Hirugano Kohgen, popular for its scenery (and ice creams). Our main destination today is the Shirakawa-go area. We will spend the rest of the day in the World Heritage listed village of Ogimachi, enjoying the atmosphere of the thatched roofs, and interesting attractions such as the Wada House and the Myozenji Museum.”

This was the tour description and, except for being stuck in several hours of traffic, this is what we did, although I missed the ice cream. The group consisted of 8 students from Yamasa and Declan Murphy, who runs the discovery programs and tours that Yamasa offers. We got to the first shrine, Oagata-jinja, at about 9:30 a.m. and had it almost entirely to ourselves. This shrine was dedicated to Izanami, the female Shinto deity, and Declan explained that it was the custom to come here to pray when you wish to conceive and when you were pregnant for a safe birth. While we were there a young couple came to pray and clap and give thanks. The wife was clearly a few months pregnant. She rubbed her belly as she was descending the stairs. Some one told me “Buddhism is dead in Japan”, I don’t know about that, but Shinto certainly doesn’t seem to be. We visited another fertility shrine not far away, Tagata-Jinja, and here the symbol was male genitalia and large wooden replicas could be found in the rear part of the shrine. Each year at the time of the festival in March, the matsuri, this large phallus is carried through the streets. Despite the ribald display, the feeling of the place is one of thanks for the birth of a healthy baby. While we were there, several families came, paid their respects and posed for photos with tiny babies held in regal looking yukatas by the parents and grandparents.

After these two short visits we headed North toward Gifu Prefecture, taking the super high way. As we began to climb into the mountains the road went through countless (actually one of the other students counted 19) tunnels of varying lengths. One was about 20 kilometers long. Below the highway, we could see little towns tucked between steep mountain slopes, straddling rivers of clear sparkling water dotted with white rapids. Fishermen with very long poles could be seen on the banks. As we got deeper into the Japanese Alps the mountains were entirely covered with tall dark evergreens and other types of trees that seem to cling to almost vertical slopes.

Unfortunately, it was the weekend of a National holiday and the road was packed with cars and motorcycles. It took us almost twice as long to get there as Declan had planned. Consequently we only had a couple of hours to visit the main attraction, which was absolutely spectacular. The entire village is an open-air museum, many buildings carefully maintained and open for visiting. There were all sorts of little shops selling crafts, sweets and local specialties. The green you see in the pictures is mostly from the rice paddies that filled almost all the open spaces. Beside most of the big houses were ponds with koi swimming around.

I loved the place and want to go back when I have more time and can take it all in at a more leisurely pace.I’ve posted a couple of pictures here of Ogimachi, the village of gassho-zukuri (hands in prayer architectural style) houses that date back to the Edo period, 1700’s or early 1800’s (?) and one of Oagata-jinja.

Oh, yeah! I want to thank all of you who have read and made comments. It's great fun to read them and know that you are enjoying the blog. It's sometimes a little humbling. Don't know if I can live up to all the expectations. ;-)