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Japan

Walking Tour Day 4: Tsumago to Nojiri

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So, this was a day that didn’t turn out quite right, due to some personal things and my toes being a hot mess. It’s worth noting that SINCE this date, just the other day both of my pinky toenails fell off. There are little tiny new nails growing in, but on the night in Tsumago, I thought, man, I’m going to lose those nails. And then I didn’t, so I thought, ok, dodged that bullet, and then the other day I looked at my right little toenail and it looked weird, and I realized it was totally bent upwards, and I didn’t even feel it. So yeah!

Previous posts. This is ridiculous, right, that I can’t manage to do more than one day at a time for this thing? We’ll see how things go in the future, but until then: Day 4!!

Day 4 started poorly. I woke up around 2 am to use the toilet, and saw I had a variety of texts on my phone about a family emergency happening back home, so I was wide aware for probably about 1 to 1 1/2 hours being upset and trying to figure out if I needed to do anything. Since then things are better and it turned out okay for the most part, but at 2 am I didn’t know that. Between that and my toes and basically complete inability to walk without massive pain, Louie and I decided to split up for the day.

Me at breakfast. It was very nice and as you can see, Japanese.

The hike: Tsumago to Nojiri

  • Distance: 12 miles or 19 km
  • Elevation gain: 625 m
  • Elevation Loss: 520 m

It was still raining at breakfast, another thing that held me back from wanting to hike. We technically weren’t in Tsumago, but were in a nearby hamlet called Otsumago. We could have walked to Tsumago, well some of us, but the Australians staying at the same Inn had booked a cab, and we fit in, so we rode along.

Tsumago was very nice! It’s an old, traditional town. At one point, hardly anybody lived there and nobody bothered to tear down the old houses, so when tourism came back, it was still there, ready to be visited by Japanese people from the cities, and then by international tourists. We were there early, in the rain, before anything other than coffee shops had opened, so that was nice.

Louie and I had a cup of coffee together and then he headed out, to meet up at the next hotel. My plan was to slowly explore Tsumago, then catch a bus to Nagiso. From Nagiso I would catch a train to Kiso Fukushima for the night. Louie would hike to Nojiri and then catch a train to Kiso Fukushima.

I enjoyed visiting Tsumago, and managed to get around okay. I bought a few small souvenirs, and then went to catch the bus to Nagiso. It was an easy and uneventful bus ride, and then hilariously I saw Louie again in Nagiso! I guess it was an easy enough walk. We both went to a grocery store together to get lunch for him, and a snack for me, and then said goodbye again.

Louie sent this, with a bust of Beethoven.

Another picture from Louie. The rain made everything so lush and green!

There weren’t many trains each day so I bought tickets for one that left shortly at noon. I didn’t want to walk anymore so I sat in the train station and read for awhile until it was time to go to the platform. At one point Google Maps told me my train was canceled, but it turned out that incorrect and I got on the train as scheduled.

Another picture from Louie: Please have a thing out of the sound.
Louie’s hike was spectacular! He said it was a great day of hiking.

I arrived in Kiso Fukushima and was quite hungry, so I wanted something to eat first. I had a little trouble finding something that looked good and ended up first having only a cup of coffee at a cafe (there was great difficulty communicating) and then I found a bakery and just bought a few things. My next step was to find a shoe store and find something new.

This was a grand adventure, as I spoke no Japanese and the woman who owned the shoe store spoke no English, but with hand gestures and google translate, I managed to find one pair of slides that fit well enough to shuffle around without killing my toes. It was a great day!

While Louie continued hiking…

There was a public foot bath in the middle of town and I thought I’d try that next: I had time to kill before hotel check-in, but I still didn’t want to walk too much, so I was just doing light sightseeing in a fairly small town, though bigger than some we had stayed in.

Relaxing!
Always love finding inanimate objects that appear like faces.
A vending machine Louie sent me.

Louie had thought he might get to Nojiri Station in time for an earlier train, but instead he would have to wait until the 5:26 train. He texted here and there just to make sure I was okay, and of course I hoped he wouldn’t be attacked by a bear.

I visited the public library and had another coffee in the cafe there and sat and read until it was time to check into the hotel.

Tonight we were staying at a place called Onyado Tsutaya. It said it was very old, but it had been renovated and was a very modern “old” hotel. It was nice!

Another picture from Louie: the Japanese Alps.

I unpacked and then went to the onsen. I had it all to myself, and there was an outdoor part, which was amazing. I was poking around the hotel more and I heard from Louie that his train had been canceled, completely! He was absolutely stressing out about what to do, so I left a message with Really Rural Japan for help, and he was trying to get a cab with some other people who were there with him. It was tricky. I also tried to get the hotel to help, but again, language problems.

Louie thought he might have a cab lined up, and I ran into the people we had met the night before, so I sat in the hotel lobby bar with them and chatted while waiting on him to get settled. Finally he said he was in the cab with some others on his way, and then I had also heard from Really Rural Japan by then, but I told them it was settled. He arrived just before dinner and was exhilarated from the hike and the experience: though I missed hiking with him, I was thrilled he had had a wonderful day exploring and not bogged down by me.

Dinner time: it was absolutely cheesy and fun. The hotel leaned into the tourist experience and our dinner was called “A Shogun Dinner.”

We were encouraged to wear the Yukatas, so we did. I appreciated that there was a variety of sizes and colors to choose from.

Yes, there was a short movie.

And there was food in a helmet.

But the service and hospitality was top notch, and we had a huge meal with a wide variety of food. It wasn’t my favorite meal, nor was it the most traditional, some stuff was definitely made a bit MORE for western tastes, for instance, sweeter tasting. But it was cheesy and fun, and overall very good.

We did a sake sampler

Various foods. I mean, I ate it all. I was hungry as I hadn’t even really had a proper lunch.

Dinner took awhile, and then Louie and I took a little walk around town (I wore my slides). I wanted him to see the foot bath!

Outside of the hotel.

I believe this was the Kiso River.

After that, we went back to relax. Kiso looked like a cool place, and there were other restaurants and people out walking about. Maybe there was even more going on the evening than there had been in the afternoon, ha! But we needed to get some rest, and I hadn’t slept well the night before so I was particularly exhauted.

The next day would be our last day of walking, and it was a shorter day. I hoped to walk it after giving my feet a rest! Stay tuned to see what happens!

Japan, Travel

Walking Tour Day 2: Hosokute to Ena

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Writing a blog is harder work than you would think. Probably not as hard as being an influencer and having to pretend that your life is amazing and spend hours a day on videos and “content”, but you know, for instance, today is a day off and I have to get my hair cut, and plus, I’m reading a fun book (a REAL book, not on my kindle, which means I need light) and I could be doing that instead of blogging. BUT I want to do this, it is a hobby I greatly enjoy, and I also know that my mother and other people enjoy reading it, so here we go.

For previous posts about my trip in Japan in May/early June, click here–

Day 2: Hosokute to Ena

  • Distance: 12 miles or 19 km
  • Elevation Gain: 1125 feet or 350 m
  • Elevation Loss: 1650 feet or 500 m

Here is what the guidebook said about this hike:

“Time for a long and rolling hike. This 19km goes over the Biwa Pass with its amazing original Edo period cobblestones. After the ancient post town of Okute, it is time for the 13 passes. This long, rolling section gets quite meditative as it finally emerges in the town of Ena, formerly called Oi.”

I really enjoyed that paragraph. 13 passes though, that sounds like a lot! Let’s see how it went.

Day 2: Breakfast was at 7 am, so we were up and at ’em early. But we’d gone to sleep early, so it was actually a really restful night. We would need it! (spoiler alert, haha).

All kinds of good things for breakfast! I must say, (and maybe I already said this in a previous post, but!) I had worried that I wouldn’t like Japanese breakfasts, but it turned out that I adored them. I miss them! There wasn’t a single day in Japan that I wished I had a western style breakfast, I loved all the pickly bits, the slimy veggies, the salad for breakfast, the rice and miso soup. The only thing that I didn’t like was when we couldn’t get coffee, but that was rarely the case: Japanese people may not have loved coffee but they knew that we Westerners love it for breakfast, so it was usually on offer.

Wearing my yukata. The yukata is a robe that you are given to wear around the ryokan (traditional inn). I wore it over my pajamas in this case.

After breakfast we packed up and headed out. We left our suitcases to be transferred to the next stop, and we said our goodbyes to our hosts, the owners of the hotel. They were so wonderful, hospitable, friendly, and the food was SO GOOD.

A picture with Mr. and Mrs. Sakai from Daikokuya Ryokan.

Japan is known for its vending machines, but still we were surprised to see a tobacco vending machine.

A battery vending machine, how fun!

We walked on the road for about 5 km, which wasn’t my favorite. It wasn’t a busy road, so that wasn’t a big deal, but the road is hard on the feet! I was wearing some hiking shoes–honestly, I made some mistakes with my footwear, and it started with a toe injury in March, and I’m still figuring things out. This was a hard day, as my pinky blisters were acting up, and really nothing I could do seemed to help. But–

We passed by this lovely place. It is called Benzaiten-no-ike and is a shrine to Benzaiten, the goddess of all that flows including water, music, words, and time.

Louie walking across the bridge.

It was turning into a hot and sunny day, so we made sure to stay up on our sunscreen and water. We stopped for a little snack at one point and enjoyed some salty edamame snacks, which actually seemed to be like a pringles type snack, that was reconstituted into the shape of an edamame bean.

We saw some interesting and strange things on the trail, such as this snowman!

Oh hey, more rice paddies!

Finally the path turned to grass rather than a road, it was a true relief! We passed by a house with an amazing garden of various strange sculptures, lots of cats and frogs.

The trees and ferns and undergrowth was so pretty, we couldn’t resist a photo together.

According to the guidebook, this stretch of the road is very much like it was in Edo period, and these huge ishidatami cobblestones were recovered in the late 1990s.

Nothing about the trail was that wild: people took good care of it, the shrines, the temples, and here, a bird house. But it was natural, and not busy, and we couldn’t get over how nice the air was.

Then we entered the post town of Okute. We tried to imagine living in a tiny town like this. We were always struck by how LOVELY everything was, even in the country, the houses were well cared for and the gardens neat and tidy. We would see exceptions here and there, but for the most part the places we walked by and through seemed loved and respected.

This was the notice board for Okute. Travelers would find information and notices here, as well as the town people.

This was a very large stump from a very large tree! The tree was around 1300 years old and was struck by lightning in 2004 and slowly died after that. It sits in front of the Okute Shimnei Shrine.

We found ourselves in Marumori next, an old hatagoya (inn) which is now a museum. We were walking by and a few elderly people waved us in and insisted we sit down. I was fine with this! Then they offered us what I assumed would be a cup of tea, but it was actually a cup of soup, a bit of a shock! We had said our greetings using Japanese, and one of the people asked us how good our Japanese was. We laughed because the answer was, no, our Japanese is TERRIBLE. We spent 5-10 minutes there trying to converse with the one woman who spoke a little English and using hand gestures and such a lot. We were surprised that a tiny museum in a tiny town had 5-6 volunteers working, but maybe it would get busier later? Or maybe there just wasn’t much else to do!

Then we headed along the trail, waving goodbyes and with them all watching us. We immediately hit a “T” intersection and started pulling out our navigational aids to see what to do, and then all the people from the museum were motioning and calling out “right! right!” which was indeed correct. It was quite a moment of embarassment for us!

We entered the forest again, and saw this sign–watch out for bears, I assume!

This was a cave with 33 horse-headed Bato-Kannon statues. These Kannon (part of Buddhism, I believe) offered protection for travelers and took donations in return. Often we would see coins outside of various shrines and temples, and it seemed that nobody bothered these coins, or stole them. Of course, we wouldn’t notice if the coins were all gone, would we? But again, it seemed that in Japan, people took pride in having nice things.

For lunch, we took a small break and enjoyed some onigiri (rice balls) that we had gotten that morning from the ryokan. We had some trouble finding a place to sit that wasn’t overrun with flies!

This is me standing between two mounds. These mounds were distance markings for ancient travelers, called ichi-ri-tzuka. A “ri” was the distance you could walk in an hour, so things were measured in ri. These mounds were originally built for every ri, which is about 2.44 miles, but most were demolished during the modernization of Japan. We definitely saw a few during our walks. (St Louis has its own history of mounds, so we felt right at home!)

Some beautiful homes and gardens we walked by.

As the day went on, it got hotter, and we grew weary. We took some breaks and drank plenty of water, but I really just wanted something cold. And then, in the distance, we saw a vending machine…with cold drinks! Right by a bathroom as well, which was nice to use.

I should say a few things about the bathrooms on the trail: usually we had no trouble finding one–there were plenty around, or in the towns. We rarely had trouble finding them when we needed, and of course made sure to use them when they were available. Usually they were in excellent condition, sometimes only good condition, but rarely did they seem like public bathrooms in the States.

We saw some wildlife along the trail, but no bears.

A lizard!

Me below a huge electric tower.

Very important signs, either that you need to bathe any pigs you come across, or that you need to bathe after petting pigs.

I don’t know why all my pictures of Louie are in the shadows, but for my excuse, I was exhausted and my feet hurt. You can see the mountains in the background.

As far as the 13 passes went, we didn’t count that many. We would go uphill and then downhill and some were obvious, nothing too terribly difficult, or at least if every step didn’t hurt they wouldn’t have been, but sometimes there would be a tiny uphill and we weren’t sure whether to count it. Either method of counting, I only made it to about 9 or 10, but as we finally started getting into the town of Ena, I knew we must have miscounted. Oh well!

The last mile or so of the walk was really tough, along a busier road in Ena, we were exhausted (well, I was, and maybe Louie was too, unsure!) and it was still hot and sunny. But we finally made it to the train station, where we would take a train from Ena to Nakatsugawa, our home for the night.

It was a short but painful walk from the Nakatsugawa train station to Onn Nakatsugawa where we were staying. We made it though, and it was a huge relief to take off my shoes at the hotel!

We freshened up, hitting the onsen, which was quite enjoyable. I was getting more used to the bathing (you sit on a stool and use a hand held nozzle to clean yourself thoroughly before getting into the bath, nude) though I noticed very few westerners seemed to be comfortable with the setup.

After freshening up, we went in search of dinner. Sadly I had to put shoes back on: note to everybody, BRING SANDALS. We found a wonderful izakaya a short walk from the hotel.

Not this place, though I do assume it was good, if it was around since 1953. Who doesn’t enjoy spaghetti and coffee?

A lovely view of the river.

Look at us, all cleaned up!

We sat at the bar, and enjoyed some drinks and bar food (that’s what an izakaya is, and you might be charge a seat fee, don’t panic). We also ended up chatting a bit with a friendly Japanese man who sat down by us, he was in a large group who he said were his colleagues on a business trip and enjoyed practicing his (very good) English and I think, talking to people who weren’t his colleagues.

This is what they mean by the large dishes lined up, there were a variety of plates of food on the bar, which was great because you could see exactly how things were prepared!

We shared everything and enjoyed quite a feast! After a long day of walking, it was so great to sit and eat and relax. After dinner, we headed back and fell asleep easily.

Japan, Travel

Walking Tour Day 1: Mitake to Hosokute

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I’m sorry for my delay in writing about this trip. Life hasn’t been that busy, but I have been busy enough…it’s also been challenging transitioning back into “regular life”. I finally caught up with photos enough to blog about some more of the Japan trip!

For previous posts:

Nagoya: Not boring at all

Starting off in Tokyo

Off to Kyoto on a very fast train!

Takayama for a few days

One Night in Inuyama

Day 1: Mitake to Hosokute

  • Distance: 7 miles or 12 km.
  • Elevation Gain: 1400 feet or 425 m
  • Elvation Loss: 400 feet or 120 m

So, we last left off at the Hotel μ Style Inuyama where we had spent the night. We got up early and Louie went to the onsen first, and then we had breakfast, which was fun. It was a big room, and there was a buffet set up with a variety of Japanese and Western food, but you first went through a line to have a salad made, with some choices on toppings. After you got the salad, you had unlimited choices as to what else you wanted to eat. We both made sure to eat a hearty breakfast as we had 7 miles or so of walking ahead of us!

After breakfast we packed up and headed down to checkout. We had our stuff organized with a carry on size suitcase and a hiking backpack for each of us. Our luggage would be transported to our next destination for the night, so we just had to leave it there. The front desk people seemed confused though, so I did message our company, Really Rural Japan to make sure everything was taken care of–they responded quickly that they called and it was all good. We also stopped at a Family Mart at the station to pick up snacks and lunch, as we were told there wouldn’t be many places to eat today. We got a few different sandwiches as well as some salty snacks and nuts.

We used our Suica cards to travel from Inuyama to the transfer stop, Shin Kani, but then grew worried that we would need a paper ticket for the next stop and wouldn’t have time to make it all work. We were very stressed by the time we got to the station, and then we quickly discovered that it was literally a 20 second walk between platforms, and the station master easily helped us scan out with our Suica card and then buy tickets–the whole procedure took less than one minute and we made the next train with no issues whatsoever.

We got off the train at Mitake, which was a very small station, with clean bathrooms…but you had to squat. And then it was time to get walking.

As the guidebook said, “You are about to get very rural, very fast.”

We were so excited! It was very different from being in a city already, the air was fresh, and we “only” had 7 miles ahead of us. Nothing to do today but walk. We had a guidebook with the written instructions as well as GPS routes through an app called Gaia, and it took a little while to get used to navigating.

I was a big nerd and had decided to use a belly bag to store things that I wanted easily accessible like my phone for pictures, a place for my sunglasses and a few other things. This worked out really well even though I look like a weirdo.

One of the first things we noticed was the rice paddies. They were everywhere! Sometimes people were working in them, but usually they were just there, you know, growing rice. I was surprised by this at first: I think I assumed there would be huge industries running the rice paddies like the corn farmers and dairy farmers here, but it seemed to be a lot of individual people growing their own rice, just as one here in the States might have a backyard garden.

We walked along a road for awhile, maybe even the first mile, but finally we went off onto a grassy path instead. It was so lovely!

The road was less road-like in this picture.

We saw many many shrines and temples along the way, ranging from very tiny to larger.

So, what is the Nakasendo Trail? It was originally a route from Kyoto to Tokyo (formerly known as Edo) and it went through 69 different little towns, called “Post towns” where travelers could sleep, eat and get information and supplies. We would be walking on the Nakasendo Trail for 5 days, so only a little bit of it, but doing what we were told was some of the most beautiful parts. The first two days would be parts that were less commonly walked and then we would be into a part that was walked quite a lot.

Bamboo Trees in the wild

We walked on various types of paths, paved, dirt, grass, and cobblestones.

Cobblestones were obviously the most scenic!

As we got closer to lunchtime, we also got closer to “La Province” which was advertised as a cake shop that we shouldn’t miss. We decided to first eat our sandwiches, so we stopped at a place called “Gotemba” for that, and it is “where Princess Kazunomiya rested on her journey to Edo to marry the 14th Tokugawa Shogun, Tokugawa Iemochi.”

We were surprised to see that the cake shop was a French cake shop! It was an absolutely gorgeous setting, up on a mountain/hill with a great view, and a beautiful garden.

We ordered cakes and coffees, and were thrilled to sit down for a bit as well. They also filled up our water bottles with ice water for us, which we super appreciated.
There were more things I would have to liked to eat from the display case, but we didn’t want to make ourselves sick.

Louie got artsy with photos in the garden, haha. It was nice to relax and enjoy food for a bit, as well as freshen up in the bathroom a bit. We felt like we were a little dirty and sweaty for the place (you could also drive there) but no one seemed to mind.

Then it was back on the path! By now we were getting the hang of the navigation, Gaia worked best rather than trying to follow the written directions, and then there were plenty of blue signs that said Nakasendo, as well.

This was one of my favorite parts of the path for a bit: it was shady and downhill, hah! It looks like this part was about 3 km long, so you do the math on that.

These are Buddhist monuments along the way.

Watch out for bears! We did get a lot of warning about bears, and we had bells hanging from us that the company supplied to make a little noise as we went so that we wouldn’t sneak up on bears. Those signs are pointing the way to the Nakasendo Trail: we learned those characters soon enough!

As the afternoon went on, I was getting more and more tired. The last few km were on a road in the sun, and I was exhausted… and then we saw it, our hotel for the night in Hosokute Juku, called Daikokuya Ryokan.

Louie took some pictures first, and as we were outside doing photographs, the owner came out to greet us. It was just past 3:00, so not the longest day, but it felt long! I was thrilled to take my shoes off and yes, our luggage had arrived. There has been an inn in this location for hundreds of years and has been passed down through many generations in the Sakai family. This building was built in 1859 to replace another one that burnt down in a fire. It is, as you can see, very traditional and inside there are tatami mats, sliding doors, and futons.

We loved it! It turned out that we had two large rooms to use: one for sleeping and one a sitting room, and though the bathrooms were down a flight of stairs, one bathroom was reserved for us and the other bathroom was for the other guest: yes, there were just three guests that night! We freshened up and lay down for a bit, there was wi fi as well so that we could send texts and check instagram.

You can see some of the wood here–this was from a hallway sort of around our rooms. I was poking around to see what the layout was, and it looked like the area where we stayed was at one time at least 3 different bedrooms. I imagine now they charge more for guests and have less of them–we were lucky to get this place and I don’t know how much it cost.

The futons we would sleep on. I grew to really love sleeping on futons, though sometimes getting up and down wasn’t easy!

We chose 6:30 for dinner to maximize our bathing and rest time beforehand. Dinner was downstairs in a middle area.

They invited us to the morning exercise, but it seemed like a bad idea with all the walking we would do the next day. It looked like a unique opportunity though!

We headed downstairs for dinner, wearing our yukatas. The table was set with the cold dishes and veggies.

There was tea and water, as well as sake for extra money. (Cash)

So the Nagazara and Kobathi were already on the table, and after we finished those they brought each following course. Fish, Taro Ball, Tempura, and then rice and miso soup–they asked if we were still hungry for it, and we were.

This was the best tempura we had in all of Japan, not just so far on our trip. We didn’t know it at the time, though we suspected.

Some fruit. I’m not sure if there were more pieces and I forgot to take the picture earlier, ha!

And green tea ice cream. The owner told us that this was a special treat for Really Rural Japan folks, lucky us! The whole meal was so delicious, everything we ate was delicious, though especially the tempura, plus all the little dishes at the beginning. Just phenomonal. We were so happy to be there, and so happy to be at the start of a 5 day walking tour!

How were my feet? Okay…they didn’t feel too terrible at this time, though my soles were tired by the end of the day. I had wrapped them in these specific blister bandages I’d bought in Nagoya, and it was working okay at this time.

After dinner, there was absolutely nothing to do, but that was okay as we were exhausted and breakfast was at 7, so we just went to bed.

I’ll leave you there, but I promise I’ll be back soon with another day of our trip!

Japan

Japan Trip: Takayama for a few days

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To continue, we recently got back from an amazing trip to Japan.

Starting off in Tokyo

Off to Kyoto on a very fast train!

Day 6:

Louie woke up early and used the onsen, but I just relaxed and then packed up. We enjoyed another large breakfast at the Ryokan.

For this breakfast, we had things we needed to grill atop those black pots. It was fun to be interactive haha.

You can see the food grilling in this picture: meats and veggies.

We had a little menu card telling us what we were eating. It was really lovely, and we really enjoyed our stay overall at Nishiyama Ryokan.

The breakfast room was very beautiful.

This is a picture of the garden at the hotel. I would stay here again, no hesitations.

After breakfast we checked out and headed to the train station to catch our train to Takayama. We first took the subway to Kyoto Station, and then learned our Shinkansen from Kyoto to Nagoya was delayed about 15 minutes, which left us with only about 8 minutes to make our connection for the Hida Express from Nagoya to Takayama. We spent the whole train stressing about it as there was only about 1 per hour or longer, but then we ended up making the connection with time to spare: it was a quick transfer gate and to the next platform. I think it took us 2-3 minutes, and we ended up having so much time!

We had bought sandwiches and other snacks to eat en route, since we wouldn’t arrive until 2:15 pm or so.

On the train.

A happy little dessert.

The train ride was quite beautiful as it headed into the mountains. It was definitely less smooth than the Shinkansen however.

We got to Takayama around 2:15 and walked a short distance to our ryokan. I had struggled with decision making in Takayama, where to stay? I made and canceled a few reservations before settling on Ryokan Kaminaka. I had still worried about it, but we ended up enjoying our stay. I’m also sure the other places I found would have been lovely in different ways.

But! We entered our ryokan, and immediately had to put on slippers. The lobby was VERY traditional, with tatami mats, and I got fussed at not to bring my suitcase any further into the lobby. A man came and cleaned off our suitcase wheels and then we checked in and were shown to our room. We were led up the stairs, around a corner, and down a hall, and it seemed very confusing at first. We got to the room and the owner insisted we put the suitcases in a closet, I was NOT to put it on the tatmi mats! We left our slippers at the door and then there was a step to the area with a toilet and a sink/shower room, and then room proper, with sleeping mats.

The hallway. It was gorgeous and…we learned later that originally the building had been part of the red light district. Our room was further down the hall in a newer part of the building without those fancy doors, unfortunately.

Louie and I enjoyed a little tea and snack in the room and then headed out to walk around the town. We found the river and then wandered around old town.

Very historic street!

We found a sake brewery that you could purchase a little cup and get a bunch of samples for 500 yen and you poured them yourself, so we had a few samples.

We had made a bath reservation at the ryokan for 5 pm so we came back for that. It was a private onsen–there were two at the ryokan but instead of sharing by gender they had it reservation only. I enjoyed the hot water as usual!

Next was dinner! We had a reservation at Kyoya, ironically the same name as the okonomiyaki place we had eaten at our first night, but very different.

Various signs I saw in the afternoon.

A beautiful bridge we saw on the way to dinner.

We were glad we had a reservation, because the sign out front said they were full unless you had one. It was a very traditional/old place with floor seating and a fire/grill at each place (in one area, there was another area without fires). We ordered a meal that included several different kinds of Hida beef–this is something that Takayama is known for. We had Hida beef miso served from a magnolia leaf (cooked over a little stove pot), and then beef slices we grilled ourselves on the grill.

This was the table across from us which was the same as our table, so you can see it a little better.

The beef miso cooking.

Anyway, we cooked our food on those grills in front of me, and then we ate it, and it was very enjoyable.

After dinner we weren’t quite ready for bed, so we found another place to go, a bar called Yu. It advertised sake cocktails. This place rocked! We did have to wait a few minutes for the table and the owner was very apologetic: then we had to wait for our ordered drinks and he sent over sake while we waited! We just had one drink there and then headed home to sleep.

Day 7:

We had the hotel at 8 am and it was great! Very lovely room with garden views and we had floor seating, which was different. We had salmon, salad, and some miso on a magnolia leaf over rice.

After breakfast we walked up to morning markets by the river and wandered a bit. It was fun to see the market stands and the river was pretty.

We got coffee at a place by the river and sat and enjoyed that for a bit. (One thing breakfast lacked was coffee! Tea yes, coffee no.) We started walking to Hida no Sato Folk Village. My foot was hurting: somehow I had developed a blister on my pinky toe and it was bad at this point. I should have worn my other shoes but I didn’t think it would be that bad. So instead of walking the 40 minutes, we decided to called an uber instead. And I was quite glad as I saw the trip was longer looking than I expected plus a lot of uphill.

The museum/village was really cool. They put us to work right away.

The buildings were from the Edo period (as all the old building you see are, pretty much), and we learned about the history of the area. The gassho houses (that’s the ones with the really steep roofs) were very impressive and the weather was great! I limped around the village for a few hours.

You could go inside quite a few of the houses as well and see the inside. Even though we were staying at a traditional inn already it was still cool to see. You have to take your shoes off to enter most of the houses, unless the floor was dirt. From my point of view with my feet hurting, it was a relief to take my shoes off!

There were so many different types of houses too. I have a special fondness for houses with grass roofs.

Then we got coffees from the tiniest truck. I had a iced coffee with cream and the liquid sugar (simple syrup I suppose) and it was delightful.

You can see part of a rice paddy in from of this house.

We got an uber back to old town after that, and walked around for lunch: we had seen a ton of places to get street food so we thought it would be fun to do that for our lunch.

“Hida beef sushi” which was fun. We also had some steak on a stick, a meat and potato croquette, little filled pastries, and some grilled mochi balls.

Then we found another sake brewery and did more samples: 10 coins for 1000 yen bought us two cups and 8 pours. There was also a tasty yuzu liquor, which I would have bought a case of if it didn’t seem too tricky to bring home.

We wandered more, and found one more sake brewery and enjoyed a few more samples, but no souvenir cup. And then, bath time again! We headed back to the ryokan to relax and clean up.

After relaxing, we were hungry again, but didn’t have a reservation for dinner. We wanted to try an Izakaya, but we didn’t have any luck: one that looked good online was closed and another said “reservations only” when we peeked in, though we wondered if it was actually “no foreigners”. This wasn’t uncommon: some places had signs that you shouldn’t go if you didn’t speak Japanese and I had also read of places where it wasn’t even whether or not you could speak Japanese. (However, most places were very welcoming and we did our best to communicate.)

We found a little area with a bunch of places to eat, like a tiny outdoor mall, and we found two seats a a ramen place. We had ramen, dumplings, and a drink, and all was very tasty.

We also found a hamburger vending machine, but weren’t hungry.

We ended the night back at Bar yu for a cocktail: we got lucky again. When the bar was full the owner put out a sign that said “full” rather than letting people wait. It was full, but after we strategically sat a minute to rest our feet suddenly it was open again, so we got to go in!

Day 8:

We had 7:30 breakfast because we were meeting a tour. I wasn’t sure if it was a small group but it ended up being a private tour. Our driver and guide was named Yama–he was very friendly but a little quiet. He was happy to answer questions, and over the course of the day we got to learn so much about Japanese life from him.

He drove to Shirikawago first and we walked around. Shirikawago is a village filled with gassho houses, but it is ALSO a place where people live. It’s a UNESCO world heritage site and it can get really busy. You can take a bus tour there from Takayama but I wanted to get ahead of crowds so we did a smaller tour.

There is a large parking lot across the river from the village for the tourists to park and then walk over that bridge. We walked through the village and then up to an overlook to see the village from above. What a cool place!

From above! You can also see the rice paddies as well as the houses. They needed to be built a certain direction so the sun would dry the roofs. And the people used to make silk and breed silkworms in the upper floors, I don’t think I mentioned that earlier.

By the time we got back down from the overlook the tour buses had started to arrive and it was getting busier in the village.

We went inside one of the houses and learned how to people lived, how the houses were built, and how the roofs are repaired. We also learned about the fire safety plans for the village and how if a fire started the other houses would get soaked with water in the hopes that only the one house would burn and not all of them.

We saw one of the roofs being replaced. In the past the whole village would get together and replace a roof in one or two days. Now one person is doing it and it will probably take weeks.

We got to catch a demonstration of rice planting, complete with singing and coordinated movements. It was fun to see!

Next we were heading to an onsen, but an outside one. It turned out that this onsen actually needed bathing suits and we hadn’t brought any: oops. Like even to Japan, so our tour guide took us to find some. Louie had no trouble, but I couldn’t find anything. Think of bathing suit shopping in general, and then think of shopping in a country where absolutely everybody is smaller than you, and how that makes you feel! Not great! I decided to find a pair of athletic suits and wear them with my sports bra. It was not a happy time.

After that fiasco we had ramen for lunch. We went to a place that served the noodles on the side so you would take the noodles and dip them into the soup part. Very nice!

Next we drove awhile to get to a hike to Hirayu falls. We went further into the mountains for this, up to nearly 5000 feet of elevation, which was a lot of fun to see. The hike was nice and the waterfall was beautiful. My blister was feeling better (I had lanced it the night before) but not great, so Louie and Yama did another hike without me, to a big tree while I just hung out.

After that we did more driving to a hot springs in the open air. It was a public springs down by a river. Louie and I went in together with our makeshift suits, and enjoyed relaxing until we were out of time–which worked out well as it was just starting to rain. It was very fun, though there were two little kids in the water which was a little less relaxing haha. It was fun to do an outdoor sort of wild onsen, even with the clothing challenges.

The onsen from above
The onsen

After that Yama took us back to the hotel to freshen up before dinner.

I had made reservations at a place called Heianraku which was supposedly a Chinese restaurant. I had to email to confirm using a password “horse” and then they sent an email showing how the doorbell would be hidden and we would need to ring it and say the password. I figured either these people were insane or just very particular, but the food was supposed to be excellent so we went with it!

It turned out that I think they were just having a lot of fun. The restaurant was run by a couple: the woman spoke English really well, and they definitely wanted people to come if they had a reservation. We got a set meal with a drink, side dishes, gyoza, one entree of choice, and a dessert of choice. I had a shochu yuzu cocktail and it was delicious. Louie tried some sakes and couldn’t really decide so they gave him a glass of each of his favorites for no additional charge.

We got a mapo tofu with chicken, and tofu and cabbage with miso for our entrees.

There were only 4 other customers when we arrived and we were the last, even though they had all kinds of signs outside saying they were full–we thought they had room for more! I guess they were happy with the amount of customers. We chatted with the woman owner quite a bit at the end: she had us sign a world atlas with where we were from, and she asked us questions about US politics.

Louie wanted to go back to Bar Yu again but it was full. We waited a bit but nothing changed, so we went to a place called Bacchus instead, and then popped by one more time. Still had the sign out. I was exhausted at this point anyway, so we (reluctantly) walked back home.

Ryokan Kaminaka at night.

I’ll end there: tomorrow we would be headed to a new city, so that’s a good place to stop.

Books, Hiking

Snowstorm

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We had a nice ice/snowstorm last week. It started Tuesday night late with ice, then a bit of snow, then a break, and then it starting snowing early Thursday and snowed practically all day. I had off school for my early morning job, and then taught online Wednesday and Thursday. Friday I did go into the college to teach, though I borrowed Louie’s Subaru rather than drive a Corolla.

It was beautiful to watch, and I’m glad we got the snow, but I’ll be glad to see it gone. Today the high is in the 40’s so I’m hoping it makes things easier to get around in and that I can start driving my own car again without concerns.

This weekend has been mostly at home relaxing, but we’ve done some interesting things over the past few weeks. One day we hiked the Lewis and Clark trail–it was after a snow, and there were some icy bits but mostly it was a wonderful day of hiking, and the weather was perfect: sunny and in the 40’s. It’s nice hiking in St Louis in the winter when it’s warm enough, because there are no bugs, and if it’s a scenic hike you get more views.

Quite a lot of the hike was along the Missouri River. It had a lot of ice floes traveling along it.
The hike was about 8.5 miles. This was the map from Louie’s watch. You can make it a 5 miles hike, or shorter if you just do the out and back to the first river overlook (which is very nice) but I have to say, the whole hike is really nice! It isn’t terribly steep overall, and so much of it is along the river that it might be the most scenic hike in the St Louis area.

We also walked around Forest Park a few times and enjoyed the scenery there.

We often park near the World’s Fair Pavilion to start any walks in Forest Park. This was on a cold day after a bit of snow.

We haven’t been out much otherwise, lately. It’s cold and you know, omicron. We’ve eaten out a few times though, at Lily’s Mexican and a place near our house. And last night we got takeout from Himalayan Yeti, which we had almost forgotten about! There are some leftovers for lunch as well.

Cooking wise I’ve made a few delicious soups lately. I might have already told you about the Broccoli Cheddar soup, but I’m not sure. That one we ate with leftover rolls from Union Loafers: I had bought some things from them for Christmas, but froze the dinner rolls as we couldn’t eat it all at the time. I wish they sold them year round.

I also made the potato mushroom soup linked here. I made a few substitutions based on what I had, but I chose it because I had mushrooms and potatoes to use up and we wanted a soup. Highly recommend.

TV wise we’ve been watching 1883 and Euphoria as they come out, we just finished the latest season (or half season?) of Ozark. Last night we watched figure skating and other things on the Olympics.

Books: Non fiction I’m reading a book on the Marquis de Lafayette, Hero of Two Worlds by Mike Duncan and They Were Her Property: White Women as Slave Owners in the American South by Stephanie Jones-Rogers. I am slowly working through my nonfiction book stacks.

I also read Beautiful Country by Qian Julie Wang which was a memoir showing a family of Chinese immigrants and their great difficulties living in NYC. Very thought provoking and well written.

Fiction wise: I recently read Mrs. Dalloway for my book club.

Eight Perfect Hours by Lia Louis, a cute romance

The Heart Principle by Helen Hoang. I would have liked this book better if the main character hadn’t been a violinist as I found most of the violin parts to be pretty bad (poorly researched), but the rest of the book to be wonderful.

It’s another week ahead of me, and it looks to be a “normal” week, weather reports look fine, it should be back to work, teaching, getting the spring festival application done, and a few other things. I slept poorly last night worrying about stupid things, and had some weird dreams of trying to get to various gigs in Ohio, but otherwise, no complaints! We are preparing for a performance in late February at the school, which gives us a good direction for the next few weeks of classes.

What have you been up to? Read any good books lately? Goodness knows I don’t actually need any more on my lists, but I’m always up for me.

Travel

Getaway to du Quoin

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Oh, the beginning of school, such a glorious time! It feels like summer just started, and it is already gone. In any case, at some point in July, I started worrying we would get the end of summer and wish we’d done more, so I figured I’d plan another weekend trip. I wanted to make it longer, but Louie couldn’t get away from work enough, so I found a cute airbnb about 1 1/2 hours away that would have opportunities for relaxing, swimming, hiking, eating, and just not being at home.

We found a lovely place in Du Quoin, Illinois, a town neither of us had heard of before. It was a cottage with a full kitchen, screened porch, and lake/pond access, and it had terrific reviews. We booked three nights for the weekend before my teaching semester started up again.

That was last week. Things went well, but life is getting busier and busier. I have a whole new calendar and billing system, and it’ll take people a little time to fully get used to it, but I think it’ll make my life easier and better. We had two party invites on Saturday, which was a lot of fun but exhausting…both mostly outdoor events and mostly/all vaccinated folks. But I digress!

We packed up the car and headed to Du Quoin on late Friday afternoon after Louie finished work. We found the place easily enough and got unloaded. There were wild turkeys and lots of big flies saying hello. We met up with our hosts and learned about the pond and some other important things (they require that you meet with them if you want to use the water). We had decided to cook dinner the first night, so we did that, and just relaxed. There wasn’t any wifi in the cottage, but there was phone service. It wasn’t a hardship, and the place was just really comfortable. The hosts even left us homemade granola, and fresh local eggs, milk, and butter.

The next morning we slept in a bit and then we actually had a thing to go to in Bonne Terre, a friend’s sister’s memorial service. We had decided to go, but decided to keep our trip to Du Quoin anyway, so we drove about 2 hours to Bonne Terre. It was a lovely drive, through rural farmland and corn and over the Mississippi.

We attended the service and visited for awhile and then headed back. I will say this: very few folks there wore masks, and we knew it was probably one of the riskiest activities we’d done in awhile.

We drove back and on the way stopped at Scratch Brewery in Ava, Illinois. I didn’t care for Ava, because there were two houses with signs out front advertising “Trump 2024: F**k your Feelings” except they wrote it out, and I found that incredibly offensive and distasteful. Both houses were along main routes, and while I imagine that many of the residents of Ava also dislike those people, I am happy to not return to the town. I would go to the brewery again though, but avoid anything else.

We had a sampler of beer and some bread with various spreads. Their beer is very unique and unusual, with things like Strawberry Sumac and Dry-hopped Sassafras. We enjoyed sitting outside and relaxing. It was another 20 minute drive to St Nicholas Brewing Company in Du Quoin which our hosts highly recommended. We had dinner there, and enjoyed their beers as well, though we realized we were actually still pretty full from the bread! St Nicholas was more of a standard brewery with a full menu, but we had a nice time. It was indoor seating, though we got a nicely distanced table. We figured at that point we were at the mercy of our vaccines and immune response.

I enjoyed the picture of Krampus on a nearby wall. German children are so lucky!

The next morning we headed to the Little Grand Canyon to hike. It is a hike in the 60 Hikes Book I’ve always wanted to check out, but it’s about 2 hours from home. It was only 40 minutes from Du Quoin so that seemed like a good plan. We loaded up and headed out and enjoyed the first part of the hike. There’s a point where the trail heads down some rocks, with steps chiseled into the rocks, into the canyon, and when we got there we realized it was basically just a creek. We started to try it, and then Louie slipped and fell and it was like a slip and slide! We decided to head back up. The hike was a loop, however, so we figured we’d hike the other side instead, and at least see a scenic look out and see how the other end looked. All in all, we hiked both sides up until you go down into the canyon but decided though the other side looked slightly less wet and dangerous, it wasn’t for us on this day.

After the hike, we went home and got ready to hit the pond! The pond/lake/whatever was a former strip mine that is now filled with water. One thing our hosts emphasized was that it was deep right away, and very deep: 25 to 100 feet! A little terrifying, but I just tried not to think about it. First we took the rowboat out to explore: there is a creeky old rowboat you can use. It was fun to ride while Louie worked hard (hah!) and we went some ways, to the end of the pond at the long end (it’s a wavy T shape) and then back. We were hot and sweaty then, so we hopped in the water for a bit. There is a ladder in and out, and plenty of floats to use so you don’t have to swim/tread water more than you want. The water was warm at the top but cooler down below.

After we got out of the water we chatted with our hosts a bit: they told stories of giant catfish and scuba diving! Then we went up to cook our dinner again. We figured we’d taken enough COVID risks the day before. We also managed to download a couple episodes of TV to watch (you can hook your phone up to a TV if you have something to watch) and enjoyed relaxing and watching tv before bed.

We got up early the next morning and headed home: we were both working after lunch and so we needed to get back. It was a lovely weekend getaway!

One of my pandemic thoughts was that I wanted to do more things nearby when we can rather than just waiting until summer to do longer trips. We’d like to still do a longer trip next summer if possible, but it’s been really nice exploring nearby this summer: Arkansas, Hawn State Park, Du Quoin. Maybe we’ll be able to do a few more short weekend trips over the upcoming school year.