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Published: June 14th 2017
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Geo: 36.1611, 137.25
Today, we explored the beautiful mountain town of Takayama.
We (Steven, Matt and I) snuck down for a quick onsen before breakfast. Again, the baths were deserted, and the "male" and "female" baths had swapped, as they have slightly different ambience. It feels so refreshing and cleansing - if it wasn't for the nakedness, I'd do this every single day!
Breakfast was "Japanese style"....honestly, not much was my taste but the fruit was nice, and the beef and miso paste with rice was ok...poor Aya, she didn't seem all that surprised when we said that tomorrow, we will have Western breakfast thank you! But at least we tried it!
We then took the shuttle bus back into town, and walked the couple of blocks to the beautiful old town. In the 600s, this town was unable to pay its taxes in rice, as the climate is very harsh, and so began paying its way using timber and carpentry artisans. The timber resources became so important that, during the Shogun/Edo period (1600s to 1860s), it was under direct control of the shoguns. It is one of the few preserved Edo towns, and we loved walking the narrow streets and looking in all
the shops (mainly catering for tourists). A restorative hot coffee/hot chocolate was great - the temperature was about 7 degrees, and whilst the kids kept wishing for snow (which didn't look likely under the weak sun), I reckon they would have whinged bitterly if the temp had dropped 7 or 10 degrees - they were cold already.
We passed through the last stalls of the morning market - which I realize were fruit and vege markets for the locals - and bought some apples, then entered the Takayama Jinya - Edo local government office, which is the only one of its kind remaining in Japan. Matt Andrew and Grandad Stan - you have it good in George Street! One of the guides had (unkindly) said this was a museum of lots of rooms of tatami mats - it is correct that there were many empty rooms, but you certainly got the feeling of life for the head official, his family and staff and bureaucrats.
We then went back to the pretty old streets for lunch - the steamed bun with Hida Beef was so good, we all ordered a second one (Matt and I had first had a little bowl
of curry, which was also excellent).
After lunch, with the temperature dropping and a light drizzle starting, we went for a short walk to the temples - there were about 20 temples all overlooking the town. They were nice - don't really understand it, but feel culturally insensitive saying so - and it was interesting to see the monks praying. Matthew entertained us all by carrying a lump of snow that he was trying to keep for the afternoon. And we found a shop selling light cotton yukatas (kimonos) which the big kids bought as summer robes.
Back to the ryokan for another bath - Olivia opted out - then relaxing before dinner.
Aya brought us another beautiful meal - cold meats and beans made to taste like meats, then sashimi, then sukiyaki beef - yum!! We ate and ate, and couldn't finish it all. Then a fantastic lemon sorbet and fresh fruit for dessert! All in bed by 9pm!
Ps the last couple of photos are from the Internet of our ryokan - I didn't actually take a camera into the baths!!!!!
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