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IES Abroad has been spoiling us with incredible weekend trips every month. For the month of October, IES Abroad Nagoya visited the Gassho Cultural Center in Shirakawa-go, which is a World Heritage Site.
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View from inside a window of the Old Matsui house in the Gassho Cultural Center at Shirakawa-go.
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Tools used for farm work in the Showa period.
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A family of scarecrows.
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A mountainous view of the village huts at the Gassho Cultural Center.
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We got to experience Japan’s superb mountain landscape up-close by staying in a the Toyota Ecological Institute, which provided us with several instructional lessons on mountainside Japan. We were guided through a short hike. Our guide, pictured with the hat, showed us some edible seeds from one of the plants along the hike. They were similar to sunflower seeds.
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Peeling open the nut-like seeds.
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For a hands-on experience with the nature surrounding us in Shirakawa-go, the IES Abroad Nagoya group worked together to make a base for a wooden bridge. Our guide explained to us how to pound branches of a specific type of tree to make it a flexible “rope” to tie together logs with.
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Pounding away at the branch. Unfortunately, I don’t remember what the tree species was called…
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The branch tied in a knot to hold the logs together. The complete structure is shaped like a pyramid.
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How many people can stand on the base structure?
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An IES Abroad student looking through the informative brochure of the Takayama Jinya before entering.
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A couple taking a rickshaw through the streets of Takayama.
Even in just a short weekend trip, IES Abroad has guaranteed us a wonderful time... We're all impatient for more trips!
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Deanna Stout
<p>Kamishibai is a Japanese style of storytelling that was popular in the first half of the 20th century. These narrators were street performers of a sort -- they read a variety of stories from a series of illustrated paper boards, entertaining the commonfolk before the emergence of television. I will blog about my experiences in Japan through a modernized version of kamishibai, telling my stories through a series of photographs and their corresponding narrations that will be similar to a novel.</p>