To continue, we recently got back from an amazing trip to Japan.
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.
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.
I’ll end there: tomorrow we would be headed to a new city, so that’s a good place to stop.