Shirakawa-go and Mountains

So the day after that dam, we came to Shirakawa-go, a World Cultural Heritage Site for its thatched-roof houses, called 合掌造り　gassho-zukuri or "clasped hands." People still live in them.

(note the satellite dish)

Here's a better picture of what the town looks like, taken from Wikipedia


My other cool picture of this town is of the Buddhist temple.


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After that we proceeded to bike through 天生峠　Amou Pass, an 800 meter climb over 12 km according to the Japanese Wikipedia. It was drizzly and foggy, but that was good because I tend to overheat. I had trouble for the first few kilometers, but by about halfway I had found my groove. Great views, though.
Actually this is a poster next to the road. All I could see was fog.

There was a sweet plaque to mark the actual pass. It's written right to left, which was how they did things before 1945. I couldn't really read the plaque, sadly, but someday I'll read it, too, like the plaque on the Peeing Boy of Nakatsu.

Then we descended carefully down the other side. I caught a picture of Gray going by across a curve.

Eventually we made it (through some pretty run-down towns) to Furukawa, yet another cute historic town. This one is kind of famous for its carpenters, who all had distinctive cloud patterns on the eaves.
Finally we made it to Takayama, where we met up with our host, Mike. He took our picture with this weird statue (I'm still annotating my album of statues, it'll be done soon).
On the way up to his apartment, Mike pointed out this cult building, which is apparently going to survive the apocalypse and is incredibly tacky.