Today, we checked out the UNESCO World heritage site that is Gokayama. We went to the village of Ainokura where we saw traditional Gassho-Zukuri-houses. It was a relaxed day at the countryside.

Check out an interactive Map of the places we visited here. I will update this map as we continue our Journey. This post is about Day 9.

Small house in the Gassho-Zukuri style that was used as an exile house for people that misbehaved in the village to expel them from the community. This hut is the only exile hut remaining in Japan, it is just a replica though. We also visitied a Gassho-Zukuri house and saw the insides of it. These houses are quite spacious but they also had to fulfill a lot of functions. This is what we learned about the house that we visited:

• It housed more than 20 people.
• It was used to keep cattle as well as people.
• The upper floor was used to house Silk Moth Caterpillars to make traditional Japanese clothes from.
• The steep angle of the roof was useful to keep masses of snow from collapsing the house.
• All the houses were built without a single nail.

We walked to Ainokura, which is one of three Gokayama villages that you can visit. Ainokura is medium-sized compared to the other two villages. It has about 20 Gassho-Zukuri houses in total. In some of the Gassho-Zukuri houses in Ainokura, people are actually still living in. Some houses are used as accomodations for tourists, others are used as museums or restaurants. There are not only Gassho-Zukuri houses in Ainokura. It also has other, non-historic buildings like the one pictured above. As you can see, the surrounding mountains make up for a beautiful backdrop of the whole village. There is one particular photo-spot in Ainokura, that you have to go to and it is this one. Of course, we went there and took the picture above. We spent about 2 hours in Ainokura (we also had some small coffee and ice cream there) and then went back to our accomodation. The way back is paved but no cars are allowed on this road. I loved these three road boundaries that get increasingly more bent from left to right. In all of Japan, you can see a lot of wild Wisteria growing and hanging from trees. Right now, they are in bloom in the regions we travelled to which is always a beautiful sight. The place we stayed at is quite remote. Luckily, there is a sign on the road, guiding you the correct way. Otherwise it's kind of irritating to walk on a country road without any pedestrian walkway in the middle of nowhere.