On my first trip to Nagoya back in the 1970s, the family of a girl who had been an exchange student in my town took me to a festival at a temple (I forget the name of the temple) where you were supposed to write your dearest wish on a block of wood and throw it into a bonfire to make it come true.

Somewhere near a budget ryokan that I stayed in a few years ago, there's a whole neighborhood devoted to selling Buddhist funeral paraphernalia.

It's the gateway to the Ise-Shima peninsula in one direction and the Takayama area in another.

All the Shinkansens out of Tokyo stop there. If you're tired of the Shinkansen, you can start a "back way" journey to Tokyo by taking the Chuo-sen (yes, the same Chuo-sen) through the mountains to Shinjuku.

Didn't some poster a while back mention a remarkably preserved neighborhood near the main train station?