Breakfast at the Kyoto Station before riding up the series of escalators to the Sky Terrace. Kyoto Station is pretty huge with several basement malls interconnected with one another. Our Hikari Shinkansen was departing Kyoto Station at 11am this morning for Takayama via Nagoya.
The reflective glass facades made it look like there were 3 curved structures instead of just 1.
A little bit random but this is how our Japan Rail Pass looked like. We had to flash it to the Station Controllers everytime we crossed the gantries. For the most part of the ride into Takayama i was deeply engrossed in reading Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go, occasionally looking out the window to view the changing landscapes as we moved between prefectures.
Takayama
Monday 7 March
Takayama was further north from Kyoto, above Nagoya and naturally the weather got colder. Although we were debating if it felt colder in Tokyo cos of the strong winds there.
Takayama City is in the Gifu prefecture and together with 2 villages, forms Northen Hida. It kinda made sense to make Takayama the base and venture out to the villages as day trips via buses from Takayama. In the case of Shirakawa, we figured we wanted to experience an overnight farm-stay at the village, so we spent one night in Takayama and one night in Shirakawa, which i'd recommend actually.
The Miya-gawa River divides Takayama into the new town (where the train station and bus terminal were located) and the old town, Sanmachi District, which was characterised by traditional wooden houses.
I'm not sure if it's off-season while we were here but Takayama was a pretty quiet town, very low-key. The strange thing was when we got off the train, we were surprised by the majority number of tourists also getting off here but they quickly dissipated to goodness-knows-where and soon we found ourselves roaming the old town of Takayama pretty much undisturbed. It's like we had the whole town to ourselves.
Wooden shutters were, well, shut mostly. So much so we had a bit of difficulty finding a place to have our lunch. Well we'd earlier read about Takayama specialties which include Hida-gyu (Hida beef, the less famous cousin of Kobe beef), Hoba-miso (miso paste cooked on a Hoba leaf), Hida-soba (buckwheat noodles, apparently Hida ones had the best taste and texture), Sansai (assorted veg), and Iwana (trout served grilled on a skewer). And let's just say if we had a checklist, there'd be no empty boxes.
Lai Yeow scores the first point of the checklist with her order of sansai soba... oh wait, she scores two. Clever girl.
No wonder she looks so pleased here haha.
Cheryl and I have the fluffy tamago soba. I wasn't a big fan of buckwheat noodles but i totally enjoyed this one. Hida soba does taste better and have good texture.
After encountering several closed doors we really wondered if everybody had gone to some major festival and we were the only losers not invited. It was only 4pm and Yoshijima-ke, reknowned for being one of the best examples of traditional Takayama townhouse architecture, was closed. It was built in 1907 for a family of sake brewers and moneylenders.
With nothing better to do we hopped into a quaint little family run cafe for cake and coffee. I notice the crockery in Takayama were all very victorianish-pretty.
Oops not long after coffee was time for dinner. We spent a considerable amount of time scouring the map and brochures for where to have hida beef. Most places charged an exorbitant amount for the beef. It was dark when we finally set out to the shortlisted restaurants serving Hida beef. We ended up at this nondescript one which wasn't listed on the map or brochures and guess what, it wasn't expensive and very very enjoyable.
Hida beef - check. Hoba-miso - check. The best part was grilling the beef ourselves. I enjoyed this dinner very very much.
Ordered warm sake after and tried taking a group photo ourselves. Several times.
First attempt - oops Lai Yeow's face got cut.
4th attempt - alamak camera was on timer mode. Hence the giggles. Cheryl even laughed herself out of the frame!
Ahhh finally. And all this time the restaurant owner was watching and grinning to himself from behind the counter.
We had no money to pay for our hotel room that night so we doubled as cleaners and mopped the entire corridor.
After a hard day's work. Heh we were dressed to go to the onsen together, after reading all the strict rules and regulations which basically forced you to be naked with everybody else using the onsen, save for a small face towel.
Takayama
Tuesday 8 March (am)
We had a choice of which morning market to visit, the Jinya-Mae Asa-ichi or the Miyagawa Asa-ichi by the river. Don't think it would have made any difference during this season cos there wasn't much produce on sale. This was the Jinya-Mae one and we each bought a juicy fat apple for 100yen each (S$1.50).
Then breakfast at another quaint little lady-run coffee joint with pretty crockery.
Lai Yeow and her pig.
Pig wants coffee. Grace, this is for you :)
Vending machine at the bus station. We bought bus tickets to go to the Hida Folk Village (Hida-no-sato) for the rest of the morning before our one hour Nohi bus ride to Shirakawa.
Welcome to Hida-no-sato.
Lonely swan governs the entrance and welcomes visitors to the Hida Folk Village. Actually she just wants you to feed her.
The interior of a typical farm house complete with live fireplace in Hida. Lai Yeow checking out the deep exposed rafters.
Paper and wooden frame sliding partitions, just like in olden times.
Icicles forming at the thatched roof eaves.
It started snowing at the Hida Folk Village!
Rainwater is to be channeled to overflow the other trough, which will then pound whatever's inside the shed once the water reaches the brim and gets emptied.
On the bus back to the Takayama Bus Station and a last look at our hotel (Spa Alpine Takayama, which was a short 10 min walk from the train station) before we head to Shirakawa.
Oh actually not last look i realise cos we left our luggage here and packed only a day bag to Shirakawa since we had to bus back to Takayama for our train back to Tokyo.
Walking from our hotel towards the bus station.
Packet lunch as we wait for the bus.
Shirakawa
Tuesday 8 March (pm)
Our first view of Shirakawa, the Unesco World Heritage preserved mountain village, as we got off the bus. Directions to our ryokan states to cross the suspension bridge and turn left.
It was a long bridge but really what made it so long was because we stopped every few seconds to take in the scenery as well as take pictures. It was all very picturesque.
And then we arrived at our ryokan, Magoemon.
Ta-daa! I love it already!
Looking out from the entrance of our ryokan.
The matron of Magoemon was a middle-aged lady who spoke no english whatsover and explained everything to us in Japanese. She showed us where the living room was, which was also to be the dining hall, where the common bath and toilets were, our rooms where she'd prepared yukatas, neatly folded at one corner of the room. She showed us how we should sit with our legs under the table and use the blanket as cover and to keep warm as heat from a electric heater was being piped in under the table. Ahhh, so-desu-ne!
Feeling all warm and snug under the table. Mind you, it can get really hot after a while.
After confirming the strict dinner time and curfews, we ventured out in the snow and the first thing we did was to build a snowman.
3 girls and a snowman!
Nope, we didn't build the snowhouse.
And then snow fell and i was secretly pleased.
And then it snowed even more and i was even more pleased.
It was nice sitting outside just contemplating the snow as it fell. When we got back, they'd already started the dinner preparations in the dining hall.
It was very charming and i was quite excited.
Trout being grilled on skewers.
Joining us were the rest of the guests in the ryokan, namely an American couple living in Boston who love Japan very much and a Japanese couple on their way to seek his parents' blessings for marriage. Dinner and dinner conversations were equally interesting. They kept surprising us by taking out more dishes after one another and every dish had such a unique taste and texture.
"Itadakismasu!!" Let's eat!
It was too early to be holed up in our rooms so we decided to bring out our snow boots and hats and walk in the snow outside. Never mind that it was freezing.
It was raining snow!
Hands up if you got fooled with this picture.
Our poor little snowman collecting more snow.
The matron had lovingly prepared futons and blankets in all our rooms.
Midnight feast in the ryokan! Shhhh!
Shirakawa
Wednesday 9 March
Our 10,000yen for one night stay in Magoemon includes the amazing dinner and breakfast!
View of the river from the windows of Ivan & Lai Yeow's room.
How the room looks like with light filtering in through the paper partitions.
Mr Snowman survived the night!
Snowball fight! Lai Yeow running away from Ivan.
Yesterday's unsuccessful attempt at eating Hida beef pau when the last of the lot were bought by this group in front of us.
Lai Yeow satisfying her curiosity finally.
Then the snow got really heavy as we were checking out of our ryokan and heading to the bus station.
Cute little doggy sleeping with the snow falling on his nose.
Tempura udon lunch with a window view so we could contemplate more snowfall.
It is said that you should slurp your noodles noisily to show your appreciation of how good the bowl of noodles was.
Bye-bye Shirakawa! Bye-bye snowfall!
Next up: back to Tokyo
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