Friday April 19
I am finally caught back up again! After breakfast at the hotel, we are off to see Takayama, our agenda for today -
—historic village of Shirakawa-go
—traditional Japanese lunch at Irori
—countryside bike ride or walk and food exploring
—dinner at Suzuka
—Onsen experience
First, a view of the sunrise from our hotel room, it is very cloudy with some rain is predicted for this morning but we should miss most of it. The clouds make for a pretty morning sky. We have a beautiful view of the mountains from our hotel room. There is a binder with hotel info in front of the TV; in the binder are some post cards with pictures of the mountain range and some elevations noted...all in Japanese but we picked one up to try to translate when we get home.
Slight pause for a side comment - I am liking this hotel....it has fresh grapefruit! We had pink at dinner last night and white at the breakfast buffet. Now, back to the adventure.
Today we traveled about 50 minutes to the historic village of Shirakawa-go through the mountains known as the Japanese Alps. There is still some snow on the tops of the mountains.we went thru a few more tunnels to get there.
Shirakawa-go is an amazing place, so many original old buildings in a little community that was discovered in the early 20th century and preserved to show how life was in Japan in the mountains. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. We have about an hour to stroll and visit the largest grouping of structures. It includes shops and food places, along with homes and other businesses, for there are approx 1600 people living there. We are also fortunate in that the cherry trees here have recently started bloom, so there are many beautiful blossoms.
We get to have lunch in the town, at a traditional Japanese lunch named Irori. The owner harvests fresh vegetables grown in the town to serve with the meals. It was delicious! After lunch, we are going to an observation platform that overlooks the community - the options are to take the bus or do a short 10-15 minute hike. If you can make the hike, I’d recommend that option as you can get a few different vantage points along the way before you get to the top & the platform. We have time for photo ops on the platform before heading out.
We will be split into two groups for the afternoon activity. Half of us will start with the countryside bike ride and the other half will have the guided food and culture walk of the historic Takayama market district. We will not miss out on anything, as tomorrow morning we will switch activities with the bike group doing the walking tour and the other group doing the bike ride. We are in the group that will start with the bike ride.
The bikes were waiting for us when we arrived. The guides had confirmed our heights when we checked in on day 1 in Kyoto and the bikes were assigned by height and tagged with our names. After a quick check for seat height, and some instructions on how to ride on Japanese streets, we are off. The bike ride was a lot of fun, and the countryside in Japan is beautiful. We rode past some cattle farms where our guide explained what is required for beef to be able to be labeled as Hida beef. We continued to a small shrine area at the base of a mountain with clear spring water where we could get a drink. We were also provided bottles of water, and we made a couple of stops along the way both our to the shrine and back again, for rest and water.
As we are riding along at one point, we are passed by three boys on bikes, I’d guess they are 12-14. They see us and call out Hello, in English, as we call out Konnichiwa in return to them. Then, as we get back to town, riding along the streets there are several residents standing outdid their homes. They wave to us and say Konnichiwa and we return the greetings. It was special to feel so welcomed to their town. One thing we have found throughout our visit is the Japanese people are so friendly and welcoming.
We are picked up for the ride back to the hotel around 4:30pm. We will have about 3 hours before we need to report for dinner, to relax and explore the hotel, or go to the onsen. We also get information re our hotels and luggage for the next couple of days, and this requires a change of plans for us.
I had researched each of our hotels & found that the Hilton in Odawara was the only hotel with coin laundry machines, so had planned to do a load of laundry there in the evening since from the schedule it appears we would have time & it about the half way point for those also doing the Tokyo Disney extension. However, we will only be In Odawara for approx 13 hours - it is basically an overnight rest stop as we can’t get to Tokyo from Takayama in half a day on the bus. We are making stops along the way to Odawara and then on to Tokyo, but not seeing anything in the Odawara area itself.
The plan with the luggage is they will pick up our luggage here in Takayama and take them to the Peninsula in Tokyo. We are asked to pack a day bag, the AbD duffles we received at tour check-in are perfect for this, with what we will need for the one night on Odawara - clothes, toiletries, medications, chargers. Those who may need a carryon or larger size bag will be able to be accommodated, ie for a Family or medications or etc; the bus has limited storage underneath.
Thus most of our free time was spent sorting through our planned laundry, washing a few things out in the tub, hanging them to dry overnight, and repacking a bit for better organization for the rest of the trip. Tide Pods work great in a bathtub! So we appreciated the three hours to get this done. Thankfully this hotel has dehumidifiers in the rooms, likely because it is close to the mountains and popular with skiers who would need to dry out their wet ski things, so our clothes dry in a few hours with the dehumidifier in the bathroom and our things on hangers, the clothesline, and the shower rod. We learned that items need to be above the dehumidifier to get the full benefit and dry quicker, so moved things around a bit after dinner to help the drying process.
As the hotel is not close to town (there is a free shuttle to the JR line station in Takayama, looks from the schedule in the room it is maybe 7-8 minute ride and runs once per hour), and our free shopping time in Takayama is tomorrow, we also browsed a bit in the hotel gift shop. They have a nice, large gift shop with local gift items we have not seen in other areas of our travels. Takayama is known for Hida beef, and a kind of apples. There are a lot of different, unique to the area food items in the gift shop all packaged for travel. We picked up a couple of of things, because we could pack them in our suitcases that will be delivered to Tokyo and not have to carry them with us for two days with the limited bags.
You may or may not be aware, Japan is getting a new Emperor on May 1- the current emperor Akihito is stepping down and his oldest son Crown Prince Naruhito will be the new emperor. Each emperor has a unique name for their era of reign. Emperor Akihito is Heisei and Crown Prince Naruhito will be Reiwa. We learned from our shadow AbD guide in training that with the change in era, it is tradition to sell boxes of cookies and sweets in commemoration of the new era; these items are sold only for a limited time, we think until the end of this year. Our Takayama hotel gift shop has some of these commemorative items. This is the first time we have seen these, so that is one of the things we picked up here. We aren’t sure where we may find similar items in Tokyo. If I do see them, I’ll make note in my posts for future reference.
Here is a photo of the Japanese characters that represent the new era, and the things for sale in the gift shop, if you might also be interested in this unique limited opportunity
Store display
Japanese Writing which is for the new emperor’s reign -
Our dinner was at Suzuka, a small Japanese restaurant in town, for the famous Hida beef. It was very delicious! As AquaDame commented from her trip, we agree it is the best we have had here. The hosts were gracious, coming out to meet us and help get the bus parked in the narrow alley, and greet us as we entered. They were very welcoming and were happy to have our group at their restaurant.
We were back at the hotel around 9:30 pm, to check on our laundry, finish getting things ready for the next day, and get some sleep. The rain held off for the entire day...more Disney weather magic. Nothing more in the forecast until Tokyo. We have an 8:30 report time tomorrow, with luggage outside our doors for pickup by 7:30.