To get an idea of how far away this is, please see below or click here for a bigger map. Also, do not forget to zoom out and drag the map around.
345.633km
5
Takayama stationOn the way, we passed through one station that had a hot spring foot bath IN it.
Just getting there was great fun. I love the mountains in Japan and its rare for me to see them with snow. It was a shame that the winter here did not bring that much snow this year but nonetheless it was nice.
Salad Road!
We stayed at Hodakasou sangano-yu hotel/ryokan (traditional Japanese hotel). Very nice place with the random drunk corporate vacationing salarymen walking around drunk at night. This place has a ton of onsen but we only tried a few. Please see here for their website. It's in Japanese so just randomly click around. Even better, go here and click on the camera icons.
Its a shame that with a view like this from our room, the private onsens were walled off so you can't see anything. As well as other people seeing you.
Unfortunately, we didn't take any pictures of the room but it pretty much looked like the one in the picture taken from the website.
We explored a little but the town was limited to only accommodations and the bus station for the most part. We tried to go for a little hike but the knee deep snow frustrated us too much.
We did see Hirayu Minzokukan. What is it? I don't know.
There was even a giant pile of you snow you can drive through! Weee.
So, after looking around the town and not finding much, we headed back to the hotel to relax and get ready for dinner. One of the best things about places like this is dinner.
First, you dress like this -
And then, you sit in a little private room with a ton of food.
They give a TON of small stuff. But, boy does it add up in your stomach.If you don't know, Japan has many many regional foods. Why one region's ramen is better than an another I still can't figure out. But, Japanese people love their local famous things and fortunately for us this area's famous thing is Hida beef. It is maybe on the same level as Kobe beef.
Just look at the marbling!
Needless to say, it tasted great. If only every region was famous for beef instead of stupid wasabi and river fish (more on this in future trip blog posts).
Oh, another nice thing about places like this is that they write your name on pieces of wood in front of the hotel. Nice touch I think.
A strange thing about this place was the random, retro Japanese room that you walk past on the way to the onsen. Strange.
Day 2 later.
