DAY 6 (1/6): MIYAGAWA MORNING MARKET (宮川朝市), Hida-Takayama (飛騨高山), Gifu Prefecture (岐阜県), Japan, 2018.05.30

Before leaving Takayama we made a brief visit to the Miyagawa Morning Market.  Everyday from 6:30am to noon, market stalls selling farm produces, local crafts, snacks, and souvenirs will be set up at the Jinya-mae Market in front of Takayama Jinya and Miyagawa Market along the Miyagawa River.  These two morning markets have become popular tourist attractions.  We arrived at Miyagawa River at around 6:15am, while a number of vendors were setting up their stalls.  We took our time strolling along the river, and were delighted to see a few rows of koinobori (鯉のぼり), the colourful carp windsocks, over the water to celebrate the Children’s Day (子供の日) on 5th of May.  They were meant to bring good health and bright future for children.  As more vendors got their stalls ready, we turned to the delicious snacks for breakfast.  Steady rain began soon after we had our first snacks.  We hastily finished them and got ourselves a few local products (miso, dried mushrooms, spices, etc).  After returning to our guesthouse to pick up our backpacks, we made it just in time to catch the 8:25am bus for Shirakawa-go, our destination of the day before moving on to stay the night at Ainokura of Gokayama.

The sky was grey and Miyagawa River (宮川) was calm as always.  We thought the market stalls wouldn’t be up and running right at 6am so we took our time to stroll along the river.

It was delightful to start the day with a close encounter with a wooden Daikokuten or the God of Luck near the Kaji Bashi Bridge.

Colourful koinobori (鯉のぼり) or carp windsocks were set up (probably for a few weeks around the Children’s Day on 5th of May) over the Miyagawa River (宮川).

Originally the windsocks were used by samurai warriors during battles. In modern times, koinobori or the carp windsocks are meant to bring strength, good health and courage to children.

It was a pleasant scene to have a few rows of colourful koinobori over the calm water of Miyagawa River (宮川).

Some signs said the market opened at 6am and some said 6:30am.  Even at 6:30am, not all stalls were set up and visitors were scarce.  The grey weather and rainy forecast just made things worse.

Time was still quite early and there weren’t that many visitors around.

We would have to imagine if it was a little later in the day and with finer weather, the market would be much busier.

We would love to get some local produces but we just couldn’t bring them along with us for the rest of the trip.

An old man let us try the samples of the dried shiitake mushrooms.  The sample tasted gorgeous and led us to buy a bag of the dried shiitake mushrooms.  This bag of dried shiitake turned out to become the best dried shiitake we had ever had at home.

Seven-favored spices is a famous local product.  We got a mini bag of spices from the old lady.

After 7am, more stalls were opened as well as the souvenir shops along the opposite side of the pedestrian walkway.

A few stalls were selling beautiful flowers and plants.  We would soon found out that flowers were inseparable with village homes in the Japanese Alps area.

An old lady was selling all kinds of miso (味噌).  We picked up a pack of Hoba Miso, a regional sweet miso wrapped in a dried hoba leaf (magnolia).   Traditionally, the leaf was meant for wrapping the miso and cooking it over the fire.

Local honey vendor was about to open his stall.

Our first snack at the market was the takoyaki or octopus dumplings.

Watching how the takoyaki was made by the vendor was an interesting event in itself.

After takoyaki, we moved to the next stall for fish-shaped mini cakes with various sweet paste.

The takoyaki vendor recommended us to try the award-winning custard pudding at NOIX de COCO (ノアドココ).  It was a fabulous suggestion.  The vendor was friendly, the pudding delicious, and we got a chance to take a photo of the cute pikachu wearing a pudding hat!

Steady light rain continued and more visitors arrived at the market, but it was time for us to take the bus and move on to our next destination: the traditional gassho-zukuri village ares of Shirakawa-go (白川郷) and Gokayama (五箇山).