Japan Trip 2012, Day 11 - Shirakawa-gou

Today I woke up early to pack my bags, eat breakfast, then catch the bus at 8:45 to my next destination. I borrowed some hangers last night from the laundry room to hang my laundry from the air conditioner (situated on the ceiling), so I took my clothes down, packed them, and returned the hangers before heading downstairs for free breakfast. As it turns out, I got to the bus stop a little past eight. I had to wait for a while, but finally the bus came and I handed in my ticket as I settled in. There were... no more than twenty of us on the bus, with maybe half being foreigners.

Pictures: http://caelk.shutterfly.com/pictures/736
Hinamizawa Comparison Album: http://caelk.shutterfly.com/pictures/1054

For future travelers who might want to visit the place as well, you can't take a train there. The place is pretty much surrounded by mountains, and it's literally in the middle of nowhere, so you'll have to get a bus. The bus company I used was Nouhi Bus (濃飛バス), and they have two routes to Shirakawa-gou. The first is on the Takayama <-> Shirakawa-gou line (高山〜白川郷), and it doesn't require a reservation - just go up to the ticket counter and buy them from either Takayama Nouhi Bus Station (next to Takayama JR Station), or Shirakawa-gou at the tourist office. The second route is the Takayama <-> Shirakawa-gou/Kanazawa (高山〜白川郷・金沢) route, which is the only one that you can take from Kanazawa. This line does require online reservations, so if you're like me and are planning on being in Kanazawa either before or after your trip, you'll need to find a spot to get internet and make your reservations through the net. They have an English site as well... I don't think I used it, so I can't really say how good it is, though. Once you make your reservations, you can go to a convenience store like Lawson to get them printed and paid for. I detailed this in an earlier post, so just refer to that one.

I had to do some looking up to know where it left from, though... If you've got some Japanese under your belt, Googling for 金沢駅 バス 時刻表 will get you to Hokuriku Tetsudou's site, which I used to get information about what leaves from the bus terminals. I guess they own the bus terminal, and let other companies use it. My bus was labeled as an express bus (高速バス), and I found it left from Kanazawa Station, East Bus Terminal 2. I guess that information might also be printed on the ticket, but of course having given it to the driver, I can't check whether or not it did.

Last thing to add, is that there are coin lockers at the tourist office in Shirakawa-gou, but do not expect to be able to find a working ATM when you arrive in Shirakawa-gou. Get your cash before you get here, so you don't get stranded.

Earlier post with buying tickets:
http://d.hatena.ne.jp/caelk/20121103/1351927716
Hokuriku Tetsudou (北陸鉄道), bus timetables (Japanese only):
http://www.hokutetsu.co.jp/htd_hp/index/index.html

The first thing you see when you arrive in Shirakawa-gou is the tourist office, pictured above, and I bought a bus ticket out of the place there. Yes, I reserved a ticket from Kanazawa to Shirakawa-gou, but didn't reserve one from Shirakawa-gou to Takayama. Not that I really cared since I didn't need a reservation for the second one, and after stashing my bags in a coin locker, I bought a ticket for the last bus out at 16:00. That meant I had six hours. I made sure to pick up a real map to supplement my hand-drawn map of Higurashi sites and headed off.

For those of you who don't know, Shirakawa-gou is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, known for its houses made in the way the Japanese call gassho-zukuri. Like the name suggests in Japanese, the roofs were made to mimic praying hands, so that when snow falls, it sheets off the roofs and doesn't cause them to collapse under its weight. Of course, I wasn't exactly here to wonder at the window of country life preserved here. I was here as an otaku and a fan of the series Higurashi no Naku Koro ni, as the main town in that series, Hinamizawa, is modeled off of this real world backwater village of Shirakawa-gou. Originally an independently developed PC visual novel by a guy who goes by Ryukishi07, it spawned an anime, manga series, console releases, and a veritable gold mine of merchandising. Many of the scenes in the anime (and especially the game before it) were based off real world sites in this village. 'Course, I've only watched the anime, as the game is both harder to get and harder to understand from a wall-of-text standpoint, so all pics from Higurashi I make will come from the anime.

However, I made one very large mistake when I got here - I forgot to charge my camera battery, and I had no spares. As soon as I switched on my camera, I realized the battery was almost completely drained from yesterday. Well... crap. Time to get creative. I brought my charger with me, it was in my camera bag... all I needed to do was find an out of the way place with a plug. The tourist center didn't seem to have one, and so I was out on the street looking for anything that could get me charge.

When my creativity and pragmatism finally bore fruit in a flash of divine inspiration, I found myself in a dingy public restroom with a plug under the sink. Meh, it worked. I hung out for twenty minutes, checking my maps at the sink, before I headed back out.

So, with that said, I made my first stop at the Hachiman Shrine. While the fictional equivalent of the shrine is the Furude Shrine... in the real world, it was under construction. All the same, here it is (and yes, I just took the first frontal shot of the Furude Shrine that I could find).

Going down the main road, I eventually turned into down a path that would lead me to a selection of houses. Apparently, Ryukishi07 walked down this block too, and decided he liked how just about every house on this street looked, since most of the main characters have houses modeled after the houses here. The first of these was the Wada House, which is publicly open for display for 300 yen and was used as the main building on the Sonozaki Estate. Taking a turn to the right leads you down a road - when it ends, you'll be able to see Satoko and Rika's house, Rena's houses, and Satoko's father's house.

Continuing on the road to the left leads you to a rather run-down road up a hill. I'll just let you see where the road begins.

There actually used to be a castle, Ogimachi-jou, around the top of the hill, but it's long gone. The only thing that remains (that's noticeable) is part of the stone wall, and while there is a shrine there too, I don't know if it was from the castle or not. Nevertheless, there are a few informational stone plaques sitting on the site of the former castle. From the very top of the hill road, you can see a nice, panoramic shot of the entire town. Pretty picturesque.

Climbing down the hill (along what I think were the stone walls of the castle), I finally got back to the main road where I came across the Shirakawa Clinic. I saw a doctor coming out of the place wearing old-school geta sandals as well, but he wasn't laughing under his breath about maid uniforms so I guess he didn't run the place.

Other than that, there were a few other spots I took pictures of, but this covers most of what's actually in the town. Places like Keiichi's house are actually kinda far out, so I didn't go there as I didn't have that much time. I actually started to run low on battery again, but I was able to find another public restroom to charge my battery at... and at about the time I was thinking of leaving the place, I remembered I had to do two things before I left. The first was easy - make a 10 yen donation at the Furude/Hachiman Shrine, which didn't come flying back at me so I guess me and Hanyuu are cool with each other. The second... needed some preparation that I didn't do: send a piece of cotton down the river. I rushed back to the coin locker and managed to find a piece of biodegradable cotton medical gauze, which I figured would work as a substitute, and ran down to the river to set it off. It absorbed the river water and sank, unlike the cotton in the anime.

This was probably my most rushed day, and if you want to see a good couple of sites and go home, yes six hours is enough to do that in. However, I know I missed a few spots, and for that reason I don't think I'd mind going back here again to finish off the sites. The fact that there are apparently hot spring hotels around the area makes this even more tempting, which is something I think I'd at least look into if a second trip ever happened. Being able to spend more than one day in the area gives you much more time to walk the area and find spots to snap shots of. Not to mention the Hachiman Shrine will likely be finished with construction the next time I go.

Hinamizawa Guide Site (Japanese): http://outdoor.geocities.jp/hinamy2006/
Pictures: http://caelk.shutterfly.com/pictures/736
Hinamizawa Comparison Album: http://caelk.shutterfly.com/pictures/1054