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| On board Limited Express Wide View Hida |
It was bustling when we arrived at Takayama as the Spring Festival was ongoing. Other than the Spring Festival, the other thing that excites us is the cherry blossom!! As Takayama was colder than places like Tokyo and Kyoto, the cherry blossom is in full bloom here!!! We were super excited and it was extremely beautiful!
Takayama main streets are lined with wooden merchant houses dating back to the Edo period.
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| Such floats parade is one of the highlight in Takayama Spring Festival. |
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| Cherry Blossom in full bloom in Takayama! |
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| View of Takayama on a hill |
Takayama's local specialty is Hida beef! It is a must for us to try it of course! We went to Maruaki Hida Takayama for Hida beef.
As seen from the beef, Hida has more marbling as compared to Kobe. Hida also melts in your mouth more than Kobe due to the marbling and it is more fatty and juicy as well. But if you ask me, I prefer Kobe, because I felt it's too oily after eating Hida. I still prefer the meat to be less fat and less oily but still feels tender, soft and fragrant! My friend prefer Hida more, so I guess it's personal preference. Hida is also not as pricey as Kobe. Both are nice and both are worth trying when you are in Japan!
We also tried a few snacks in Takayama!
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| These Hida beef sticks were good and not too ex! |
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| Amazake (Fermented rice drink) is now one of my favourite drink haha |
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| We bought the Amazake and the Hida beef sticks from this stall |
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| Some rice cake, can't remember the exact name. But not really to our liking. |
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| Hida beef bun. Hmmm.. We still prefer to eat the beef directly instead of with a bun. |
The next day we will be taking a one day tour to Takayama's neighbours, Shirakawa and Gokayama, and both are one of the UNESCO Heritage sites. We booked the one day tour via Japanican website.
After booking the day tour, instructions will be sent to your email to arrange the time and venue for the pick up. So that morning we waited at Takayama Nohi Bus Center for the tour bus and here we go!
The highlight of Shirakawa and Gokayama are the steep roof traditional houses and of course the beautiful mountainous terrain surrounding them. I would think they are even more gorgeous in winter when the roof are covered with thick snow. However, I believe the ground will be covered with thick snow too and will be difficult to get around.
First stop of the tour is Gokayama Ainokura village. We were given 60 minutes to explore the village. The village is quite small so 60 minutes is quite sufficient. We followed a route up a small mount so that we will be able to have a view of the whole village.
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| The surrounding mountain view is beautiful, there're some cherry blossoms too! |
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| A close look at the steep roof |
It's a very peaceful and quiet town, as it's not very well known to tourists yet. Walking in this town with some farms around, the surrounding mountains and the fresh air made me feel so refresh and serene. I believe some peaceful and calm moments is what everyone really needed at times.
As it's still quite cold, there were still big patches of harden snow lying around, we played around with the snow and before we know it, 1 hour has passed.
Next up, Shirakawa! Shirakawa is the more well known UNESCO Heritage sites among the 2 so we would expect it to be more crowded there and it is also a bigger village than Gokayama Ainokura.
Before we explore Shirakawa, we had our lunch with is included in the tour.
The lunch place is a house on top of a hill so we could have a top down view of Shirakawa. A lot of people ate very quickly and rushed out to take photos haha.
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| The landscapes are so pretty yeah! |
There were a number of small museums like this in Shirakawa for visitors at a nominal fee. We didn't explore these small museums, but you could if you are interested and if you have sufficient time here.
Our tour include a ticket to Gasshozukuri Minkaen Outdoor Museum. It's across a river from the main Shirakawa village. Cherry blossoms were blooming along the carpark beside the river!
We crossed the bridge over the river and slowly walked to the museum. The museum has many of those steep roof traditional houses that were no longer in use so they're open to visitors to go in and see how it's like inside the house.
There were a lot less people here in the outdoor museum and we almost have the whole place to ourselves! But I guessed it's also because of this that there were bugs crawling on the houses and bugs flying over the ponds.
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| Boiling water with charcoal in the house |
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| Had some dessert and chill out in the Gasshozukuri style house |
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| Finally, I can have the whole cherry blossom tree to myself! No one in the background! Hahaha |
With that, we gonna say byebye to Shirakawa and head back to Takayama, where we gonna take the Limited Express Wide View Hida to Toyama! We gonna stay one night in Toyama for our next day and is also our last highlight of the trip Tateyama Alping Route and we're going to see the famous snow corridor!
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