Clear Neighborhood Streams, Colorful with Koi: Gujo

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  For millenia, the Nagara River has nurtured the people who live along its banks with its exceptionally clean waters. Its headwaters join together at Gujo, within Hakusan National Park. Gujo is a picturesque town that sits between wooded mountains and clear rivers and is where we began our four-day journey.

  Two tributaries of the Nagara River, the Kodara River and the Yoshida River, run through Gujo before joining the Nagara just west of the city. Water from the two rivers has been rerouted into small canals and waterways along Gujo’s streets. We heard the gentle sound of rushing water constantly as we walked around the town. The pristine rivers are a source of local pride and have shaped the town’s daily life for centuries.

  

A Riverside Castle Town

• Gujo was founded to support Gujo Hachiman Castle, which overlooks the town from the top of Mt. Hachiman. The castle was ruled by a handful of warlord families, including the Aoyama, whose descendants still live in Gujo today. The Kodara and Yoshida Rivers are natural moats that provided defense for the mountain castle. The surrounding castle town was a center of trade for the region; its legacy was still palpable as we walked along the streets of traditional wooden storefronts.

  We quickly noticed that many of these historical buildings had small panels sticking out from the eaves on each end of their second stories. Our guide explained that these were firewalls known as udatsu and helped to prevent the spread of fires between buildings. In 1652, a fire devastated the town’s riverside neighborhood of Gujo Hachiman, reducing most buildings to ash. The small waterways which run throughout the neighborhood today were built after this large fire as a means of fire prevention.

  

  The construction of these waterways not only helped protect Gujo from fires, but also brought the river closer to residents’ everyday lives. During our exploration of the town, we often saw flat boards, some made from wood and others metal, leaning against the walls of residents’ houses. Our guide demonstrated their purpose by taking one and shoving it into the waterway. The board dammed the rushing water, raising the water level to create a pool to wash vegetables or even do laundry.

  We also occasionally saw grates built into the ground beside some residents’ doorsteps. Peering down, we noticed they were full of fish! These open-air fish tanks are known as ei-bako and reroute water from the town’s waterways just enough to keep pet fish. However, bigger fish were yet to come. Turning down a small, scenic path known as the Igawa Komichi, we followed one of the river waterways, which was home to perhaps the biggest koi fish we had ever seen. The lack of natural predators, clean water, and ample food allow these koi to live a life of pure luxury, and they grow to be incredibly large. In the warmer months, visitors can buy fish food from self-serve boxes along the path to feed these koi.

Washing Koinobori Carp Streamers

• But these are not the only colorful koi that can be found in Gujo’s rivers. Koinobori carp streamers, a traditional windsock flown on Children’s Day in early May, take a dip in the Kodara River each winter. The koinobori are dyed by hand by members of Watanabe Somemono Dyehouse, which opened in 1580 and is the only traditional dyehouse left in Gujo. During the winter, newly dyed koinobori are tied to weights and placed in the cold water of the Kodara River to wash off the dye paste and allow the brilliant colors to congeal into the cloth. We joined crowds of locals and visitors from out of town in watching craftsmen carefully scrape the paste off their koinobori with large ladles, slowly uncovering the scale patterns of each koi. The school of koinobori undulating on the surface of the water was a fantastic sight, and it can only be seen on two days in January and February. As we gazed at these streamers from the riverbank, our guide pointed out that all the koinobori depicted koi with yellow bellies instead of the usual white. He explained that Watanabe Somemono Dyehouse’s koinobori always have yellow bellies and that if you ever spot a koinobori with a yellow stomach, it was almost certainly made in Gujo.

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• After admiring Gujo’s koinobori, we continued exploring the town, enjoying the historic atmosphere of the traditional buildings and the murmurs and cascades of the river.

Historic Home of Food Samples

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  We soon came upon Sample Kobo, a model food workshop nestled in one of the town’s classic wooden buildings. Japanese model foods, which sit invitingly in the glass windows of many restaurants, are famous for their virtually perfect resemblance to real food. These hyper-realistic food replicas were invented by Iwasaki Takizo (1895–1965), a native of Gujo. His original method involved dropping wax in warm water to create various textures and shapes. Although the majority of the models used today are made from vinyl, Sample Kobo offers a workshop in which you can make tempura and cabbage using Iwasaki’s original wax method. Donning aprons, we first selected our “ingredients” from an antique refrigerator, which contained wax shrimps, kabocha pumpkins, sweet potatoes, and peppers. We then coated these in “fried batter” by dropping colored wax over them in a vat of warm water. The instructor walked us through the technique, and we were amazed at how easily and quickly globs of wax transformed into tempura batter before our very eyes.

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• After posing for photos with our newly “fried” tempura at a table stocked with other model foods, including noodles and even pints of beer, we were led into the shop’s retro museum. This retro museum displays countless items from Japan’s Showa period (1926–1989), ranging from classic arcade machines, jukeboxes, and appliances to toys, cameras, unopened cigarettes, and even a mini truck from 1946—all of which are part of the personal collection of Kaneyama Katsuji, Sample Kobo’s owner. The shop’s owner excitedly described what each item was and how it came into his possession, often reminiscing on the memories of his childhood that each item evoked.

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Folk Dance: Gujo Odori

• After purchasing some model food keychains from Sample Kobo’s gift shop, we headed to Gujo-Hachiman Hakurankan, a museum built inside what was originally a tax office constructed in 1920 that introduces one of Gujo’s most emblematic cultural traditions: Gujo odori. Gujo odori is a set of ten dances performed during the Gujo Odori Festival, which takes place each year between July and September. It has been celebrated for over 400 years. During the festival, 30 dance events are held in different parts of Gujo. The festival’s climax is in August during the holiday of Obon, a period of four days in which the spirits of deceased family members are believed to return home. During Obon, Gujo odori is danced straight through the night from 8:00 p.m. to 4:00 a.m. without stopping. Museum staff taught us two of the simpler dances before we all danced together to a recording of the festival music. Although it was hard to keep up with the staff in the beginning, we quickly picked up the movements and brightened our winter with a taste of this lively summer event.

  

  Gujo odori is best performed wearing geta wooden sandals, which make a loud clopping sound with each step. There are several geta shops in Gujo where you can create your own personal pair by choosing from different designs for the shoe’s fabric thongs. Many residents attend all of the festival’s 30 dances, and it is typical for them to go through two or three pairs of geta, as the heavy dancing wears away at the wood, quickly flattening the shoe.

Gujo Hachiman Castle

• Finally, we made our way up to Gujo Hachiman Castle. Despite being smaller than many of Japan’s other famous castles, Gujo Hachiman Castle’s white exterior, framed by garlands of trees, is strikingly beautiful. It is notable for being reconstructed with wood rather than concrete, unlike most restored Japanese castles today. We headed inside the main keep to browse the castle museum before heading up to the observation deck and looking out on the quaint town of Gujo. Seen from the castle, the town of Gujo is said to resemble the shape of a large fish. Its lucid rivers flow through the town, and even from the top of Mt. Hachiman, we could see straight to the bottom of the ever-clear Kodara and Yoshida Rivers!

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Wrapping Up

• We finished our day in Gujo with dinner at Izumisaka, where we ate local specialties such as keichan, a chicken and vegetables stir-fry in a homemade miso-based sauce; gujoyaki, a version of okonomiyaki with green onions; and Hida beef.

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• After dinner, we went to our lodging at Joga Keibo, a guesthouse built directly over the Yoshida River, and nodded off to sleep with the sound of the rushing water.

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• In the morning, we made ourselves some coffee, sat by the guesthouse’s large windows, and watched the sun rise over the mountains onto the sparkling river, preparing ourselves for our next stop along the Nagara River: Mino!

  Watanabe Somemono Dyehouse

  Visit Gifu website: https://visitgifu.com/see-do/watanabe-somemono-dyehouse/

  Sample Kobo

  Address: 956 Hachimancho Hashimotocho, Gujo, Gifu 501-4227
  Access: https://maps.app.goo.gl/6QsXkE93ezGuQePt6
  Phone number: 0575-67-1870

  Gujo-Hachiman Hakurankan

  Visit Gifu website: https://visitgifu.com/see-do/gujo-hachiman-museum/

  Gujo Hachiman Castle

  Visit Gifu website: https://visitgifu.com/see-do/gujo-hachiman-castle/

  Izumisaka

  Address: 177 Hachimancho Tonomachi, Gujo, Gifu 501-4213
  Access: https://maps.app.goo.gl/NzMRPZKw8hVSGn5P7
  Phone number: 0575-67-0474

  Joga Keibo

  Address: 961 Hachimancho Sakanamachi, Gujo, Gifu 501-4215
  Access: https://maps.app.goo.gl/f1m8xgXV131nDd3u6
  Phone number: 0575-67-1819