Golden Leaf Painting in Kanazawa

 We visited the Hakukokan Gold Leaf Center, a museum celebrating the art and craft of gold leaf technology.  It holds a collection going back to the late 16th century.

We spent some time applying gold leaf to lacquerware plates under the guidance of this woman.

There was also a gift shop.  A couple of items might have gone home with me.

The Thatched Roofs of Shirakawa-Go

 Shirakawa-Go is a UNESCO World Heritage mountain village famous for its thatched roof buildings.    

The steep thatched roofs are built without nails.  

It is a very small village with fewer than 2,000 residents.

This steeply pitched profile is chosen to handle the region's heavy winter snowfall.

Each field produces about enough rice to feed one family for a year.

These three houses are famous in Japan.

The buildings resemble hands pressed together in prayer.

A Country Mural

While traveling in our bus outside Kanazawa, Japan, we had a rest stop beside a simple local mural.

Linked to Monday Murals.

  

Kyoto's Heian Jingu Shrine

 

Old Town Takayama

Takayama has a section of old shops along three parallel roads.  

Every now and then there is a gap between the shops and a little place for quiet reflection appears.  

Shrines are everywhere.

Miyagawa River In Takayama

 

We went to an outdoor market in Takayama.  It was on a road running along the Miyagawa River.  One bridge has a statue of a man with long legs on one side and a man with long arms on the other side.

The market didn't have much I was interested in, but the river was fascinating. Rocks in the river offered interesting patterns where the stream raced through.

Koi and ducks gathered where the stream exited the rocks.

Wooden carvings beside the river were funny.

Since I was there for the market, I did look at it a bit.

Two people had the right idea.  They sat beside the river, took in the sight, and occasionally talked.

A cat and its kittens watched near the end of the market.

Someone planted chrysanthemums along the riverbank at one point, to the delight of the butterflies.

A Shrine in Takayama

We learned that Japan has two major religions, Shinto and Buddhism.  Shinto is a native Japanese religion going back so far in history that no one knows when it began.  There is no single god and no single founder credited with beginning it.  It focuses on the veneration of nature spirits and deities.

The religious places where Shinto is practiced are called shrines.  Buddhists worship in temples.

We visited Sakurayama Hachimangu Shrine in Takayama, a city in the mountains well west of Tokyo.

The shrine  date from the time of the Emperor Nintoku (413 - 439).