October

In October, Sophie decided that she wanted to visit a town outside of Kanazawa. We chose Takayama because there was supposed to be some kind of festival that long weekend. Unfortunately, we missed the festival because I had to go to that wedding. Nonetheless, we arrived at this hostel in Takayama. It was freezing cold and run by monks. Curfew was at 10pm and we had to be up by 6:30 am. Breakfast was at 7am. It was an interesting experience, But I suspect my hostelling days are OVER! We slept in a room with at least 10 other women. I saw bugs in some of the futons and was NOT a happy camper. Takayama is a very quaint and adorable town of 60,000 people.

Scenery on the way Takayama - very cloudy, but an enjoyable bus ride (about $60 round trip)

Our hostel. Basically we slept on the floor, all in a row. Sophie went to buy a blow up pillow instead of using their pillow.

Just some random street. It's really quaint there. Then there is the little red man - supposed to bring good luck to people.

Entrance to the Morning Market. This market is opened in the morning til 12. Here they are selling preserves.

More stuff at the market! I love going to markets & looking at the stuff! Here's a lady mixing up spices for customers.

Left: A rickshaw waiting for some business. Not very busy. Right: A glass bead presentation. For a price, we could make our own. Yeah right.

This is Hida Minzoku Mura Folk Village (Hida no Sato). 

The Hida Village is a huge, picturesque outdoor museum of more than 30 old thatched and shingled farmhouses, sheds and buildings. Basically, they bring all the old traditional homes here from other parts of the region. So, say there's a small farm home that's hundreds of years old. The owner wants to build a new place, so they go in, disassemble the old traditional house an rebuild it in this "village". It is definitely really cool. I think Soph and I spent 4 or so hours there.

I really enjoyed my time in this little town. I think it's absolutely worth checking out, even though it's a bit out of the way in the middle of nowhere. I think about 3 days, 3 nights is enough here.

Main Page |  August - Kyoto |  October - Takayama  |  November - Osaka  |  November - Tokyo

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