Gero and Sekigahara

May 1, 2015

This past Saturday, Adam and I went to Gero.  It takes a long time to get there, even though it’s only 140 km away from Tarui.  It was another hot and sunny day.  The train ride was especially beautiful as it took us, at a nice slow pace, through the mountains along a river.  The river was a beautiful bright blue colour.  We left at 8:30 am and arrived at 11:13 am.  We went to the tourist information center which was totally worth it as we got 10% off coupons for where we were going.  Then, we walked up along a creek to Gassho Village.  Gassho Village is like a Fort Edmonton or a Heritage Park.  There’s this really old town called Shirakawa-go which is a World Heritage Site because of all the old houses.  They took some of the houses from that village and reassembled them in Gero.  Since Shirakawa-go is rather inaccessible from Tarui without a car, going to Gero was a good chance to see this style of house. 

Gero

We arrived at the park gate at 11:50 am and immediately went into the Shadow Play theatre.  We watched a play about how an earthquake in Gero caused the hot spring to move.  Then, an egret came along and led the people to where the spring was.  The egret turned out to be a bodhisattva and they built a mini-temple for it.  Although we couldn’t understand the play, we were given a synopsis in English and could get the just of what was happening.  The play was performed using shadow puppets behind three different screens.  After the play, they showed everyone how to make a couple different shadow “things” with their hands.  Then, came the grand finale!  They showed a bunch of different shadow animals chasing each other across the screen and then changing into other animals.  It was pretty cool.  Unfortunately, you aren’t allowed to take pictures or videos. 

Inside the Shadow Play Theatre

After the play, we had some lunch and continued to explore the rest of the village.  The most famous house called Ohdo house took 13 years to build and has 4 stories. It’s from 1833, but was recently given a new roof.  You could only go up to the second floor and I’m not sure how the other floors worked, except that from the outside you could see windows at each floor. 

They also had a giant 170 m or something slide that you could go down for 100 yen each.  We considered doing it, but it didn’t look big enough for adults unfortunately. J

The roof in the house

In the Ohdo House, you can see how there are four floors.

By the creek in Gero

After the village, we went to an Onsen (a hot spring bath).  From the Shadow Play you may have gathered that Gero is famous from Onsens.  It’s basically a resort village in the mountains.  There’s free hot spring footbaths everywhere and a multitude of onsens to choose from.  They even have a free one by the river which requires bathing suits to be worn. 

Adam and I chose an onsen.  A French couple went in before us.  The women’s bath was pretty much empty except for the French woman and me.  As I’ve been trying to get over my timidity of speaking French, I decided to strike up a conversation with this French lady.  Interpretation: While hanging out completely naked in a hot spring, I decided that know is as good a time as ever to practice French. 

We finished the day by hanging out by the river and checking out the free outdoor onsen, although we didn’t go in.

On Sunday, we went to Japanese Mass and then took the train to Tado.  From Tado station, we walked to Kiso Sansen Park (3.5 km).  We were hoping to see the tulip gardens, but, unfortunately, they were all dead already.  We could tell that it must have been quite spectacular when they were blooming though.  There was some kind of kids’ day going on and so the park was loaded with families.  They had entertainment too which included a clown and belly dancers.  I know, belly dancers… at a children’s event… in Japan…  The highlight of the day was that I bought an ice cream cone out of a vending machine.  How cool is that, ice cream in a vending machine?

On the walk to the garden.

Kiso Sansen Park

Families everywhere!  Some flowers too.

A mascot of somewhere

Monday, I was invited to go for a picnic at a peony garden with a friend.  It was really beautiful.  After a while, my friend informed me that now we will go to a different park for a picnic.  I thought it was so classic.  It’s like I never really know what’s going on or what’s going to happen.  At this park, I got to see lots of misteria flowers.

Peony Garden

My friend Tomomi and her daughter Yui

Misteria flowers, the bees love these guys.

Wednesday was a national holiday.  Adam and I were planning on another big day of sightseeing.  We headed to Sekigahara which is the town right next to us about 6km away.  We decided to train take the train instead of biking.  Sekigahara is where the most pivotal battle in Japanese history took place.  It was the battle that finished unifying Japan and started a Shogunate dynasty that lasted about 300 years.  It was a battle between the East and the West.  The East won mostly because one of the warlords on the West side had secretly agreed to become a traitor and join the Eastern forces.  Two of the other West warlords’ troops didn’t do anything at all.  So technically, the West should have won, but being three warlords down, the East won instead.  It’s a pretty brutal history and if you want to know more, you can google it and get a much better explanation. 

We saw her walking around in Samurai costume, so we asked to take a picture with her.

Outside the museum

We visited the museum and different important battle sites.  In the museum, we got to see all these old documents that showed how the rich and powerful ruled and had so much information on everything happening in Japan.  We saw documents on who runs the inn, how many in each family, how many servants, and how many bushels of rice produced each year, etc. We saw a signpost stating that Christianity is illegal and how much someone would be paid if they reported a Christian. 

Christianity is illegal document.

Campsite of one of the armies.

The main Western warlords campsite

Sekigahara is a beautiful rural town.
 It's even more rural than Tarui with only 8000 people.

There was a bunch of art pieces in this little "peace" park.

An interesting thing mentioned in our pamphlet about the warlords was that the warlords who lost the battle were forced to commit suicide. However, one of the warlords was Christian, so they had to execute him. 

We had planned to go on to a festival in Maibara, but as we were both tired, we returned home. Since we’re leaving on a week long trip, I think that was a wise choice.  Travelling all the time can be very tiring.