Takayama

For the first time in the history of this blog, I actually have something to say. Oh joy of joys. Last weekend we went on a trip to a small town about two hours from Nagoya called Takayama. We left on an early train and I slept through what I`m told was beautiful mountain scenery, or at least beautiful for the Nagoya area. Takayama is a pretty interesting place due to the presence of very old style houses that have roofs that are supposed to resemble `praying hands`. The roofs have a very steep slope and are constructed of many layers of thatch. This supposedly prevents the collapse of the houses, and inevitable squashing of the occupants, in heavy snowfall that is characteristic of the area. Geeky information aside, the houses were very interesting and had gorgeous views of the snow capped Japan Alps and trees displaying nice fall colours.

The most interesting part of the area for me was not the praying hands or beautiful views, but the `Main World Shrine` of the Sukyo Mahikari religion. Apparently, Mahikari is considered to be either a mix of Shinto and Buddhist religions or an anti-semitic doomsday cult. Either way it was an experience and a half! The building itself dominated the city skyline and looked like it belonged in a bad movie about aliens. It was decorated with gold plated stars that resembled the Star of David and the Buddhist swastika symbol, a very strange combination. After passing through the giant `towers of light`, adorned with huge swasitkas, we entered the main shrine. The inside of the temple was impressive, about the size of a hockey rink and dripping with maroon crushed velvet and gold plated ornaments. As if crushed velvet was not enough, the front of the hall was home to a giant, gaudy shrine and a wall to wall backlit fish tank! I have never seen anything so strange in my life, it was super. I walked out of the place with a new respect for mainstream religion, proudly clutching my English pamphlet.

The rest of the town was reassuringly understated and we spend the rest of the day wandering around streets lined with old merchants houses and traditional sake breweries. The food was amazing and I stuffed myself with rice balls, grilled beef and noodles. yum.