Featuring the beautiful and picturesque town of Shirakawa, in-line with the Shogawa River Valley in the remote mountains of Gifu and one of UNESCO World Heritage Sites together with Gokayama in Nanto, Toyama.
Shirakawa-go is famous for their traditional Gassho-zukuri (constructed like hands in prayer) farmhouses, a steep thatched roofs resemble the hands of Buddhist monks pressed together in prayer, which some are more than 250 years old. The architecture style of these farm houses is designed to withstand the large amounts of heavy snow that falls in the region during winter, especially in January and February. The roofs, made without nails, provided a large attic space used for cultivating silkworms.
Ogimachi is Shirakawa-go’s largest village, which is a good day trip from Takayama, or a stop on the bus journey between Takayama and Kanazawa for about an hour and half. The best way to experience the town, however, is to stay overnight at one of the farmhouses, which many serves as guest houses.
Every winter there is a 6 day light up event, and since the event is quite famous, a lottery draw when applying for booking at one of the farm houses is required. The town is lighted up with snow at night from 5pm to 9pm. I’ve been applying for years, and this time I got accepted, but the light up got cancelled because of the pandemic. We were given the option to still continue to stay or cancel it as there is nothing there during night time. But we decided to continue. As the dusk comes in and the tourist leaves, we we are the only one remaining and given this privilege, we wasted no time to capture what we can while snowing.
Really and unforgettable job and experience!
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