Day 3 Travelling up to Takayama

We took a long ride from Shinjuku all the way to Takayama. The entire journey took up the whole day practically. We had our lunch and nap on the train. I had initially planned to stop over Nagoya for lunch but in the end, after realising that we can eat and drink (and go to the toilet!) on the train, we went for an uninterrupted journey. As we were down to the last few pieces of YT's diapers, I told her to go to the toilet on the train. Dropped one of her crocs into the toilet but luckily it was the Japanese squat type. Never place the shoes on the shelf of the toilet in a moving train... just place it on the floor! It was a nightmare trying to make her pee on the train cuz it was shaking so much and I had to help hold onto her. The toilet did have a handle right in front though so YT hanged on for dear life on that and braced her knees against the toilet front (YIKES!).  She seemed to enjoy going to the toilet though and made me bring her once there even though she had no pee. Grrr.

We managed to see Mt. Fuji on the way to Nagoya where we changed to the Hida line up to Takayama. Sit on the right side of the shinkansen connecting Tokyo to Nagoya! Do you know that you can check the train routes and timetable by going to this website: www.hyperdia.com There's another one too but I think this suffice. I didn't know that we can change the seat directions on some of the trains. Hb was complaining about our rear facing seats until we saw a group of old ladies came up and a pair of them turned the seat to face their friends. We didn't get to try because there was a lady sitting behind us so it would be weird to turn to face her. (We were in the reserved seats cabin) But the train eventually reversed directions after a few stations so we were in the front facing directions afterall. I considered this journey as a type of sight-seeing as well; sight-seeing from the train.

 Mt. Fuji from the Shinkansen window











Upon arrival at Takayama, it was already dark. Luckily the streets were well lit and our hostel, the J-hoppers Takayama was easy to find. Our luggage literally exploded all over the place within a few minutes after hb took satisfactory photos of our room. See below:

If you are wondering what the little imp is doing....

She specifically came to me and ask me to take pictures of her. She wanted to show her father too! That's the left over chopsticks paper cover from our disposable chopsticks.

Princess and the pea

The hostel is really cheap and the space is luxurious. It costs us only 30 000 yen for a 4 nights stay. I had to cancel the 2 nights at Kanazawa because hb complained about having to move too much. Then again, seeing as how slow we are, I think it is the right thing to do too. My only complaints are that the duvets are quite dusty and the toilet have a weird stench. The other problem is that the bathroom was really cold as it was some distance away from the room heater so I couldn't shower together with YT and had to bathe her separately. Otherwise, the staff is friendly and one of them can speak English really well.

Pics before we messed up the room