On day 9, we are checking out of our AirBnb in Osaka today and going to Takayama. We left around 8 am and dragged our luggage through Dotonbori to JR Namba, it was so weird passing by the quiet Dotonbori with no food stalls nor crowd. As if it is a completely different place to what it is at night time. We would take a shinkansen ride to Nagoya for about 55 minutes via Kyoto, then another 140 minutes on JR Hida to Takayama station.
Day 9
The first half of the day would be mainly spent on trains until we arrived at Takayama. I must highlight the train ride from Nagoya to Takayama; the view was out of this world! Truly, when the train passed through mountains and all you can see were trees, rivers and creeks with crystal clear flow and mountains – I was totally spoiled with the view. It was so mesmerizing and at that state I totally forgot to record it on video. For anyone going to Takayama, please do not fall asleep in the train from Nagoya to Takayama or vice versa.
First thing we did on arriving at Takayama Station was to book bus tickets to Shirakawa-go tomorrow. Also to visit the JR office to reserve seats for train ride to Tokyo in two days time. Once these all sorted, we walked to our first ryokan, Ryokan Tanabe. It is located not far from station, about 8 minutes walk through the main street leading to Takayama Old Town.
We left our luggage at the ryokan and went out again to explore the Old Town. Takayama Old Town is beautiful, with many older styles Japanese buildings as the name suggests. The market attracts many tourists with shops offering local souvenirs, Hida beef, local brewed rice wine, and many others. We even spotted one shop that sells local brewed soy sauce which was attractive to me, but I regretfully did not end up get a bottle back to Sydney.
Also we really appreciate the free WiFi provided throughout the main city centre, what a nice and considerate gesture to tourists 🙂 Another thing that is Takayama famous for is their festivals, which said to be one of the best in the country. There is a morning market at Takayama that opens daily, but we did not make time for this since we went to Shirakawa-go the next morning.
What we ate on Day 9
Then we bought these bento boxes at Kyoto station, there were much less options at Kyoto than at Shin Osaka. But hubby was really happy with his eel ekiben. The chicken one tasted alright, it packed heaps of food.
Arriving at Takayama station, we needed a little of pick me up and decided to get coffee from the nearby vending machine:
As we exploring the streets at Takayama Old Town, we tried several food/drink:
We had booked the ryokan package with dinner and breakfast. The dinner was a Kaiseki dinner and will go on details about this on the next post of Ryokan Tanabe, so stay tuned \ (•◡•) /
Japan looks fascinating
It truly is 🙂 Thanks for dropping by here xx lina