Day 7 Travelling to Osaka

We have booked Swissotel Osaka as there was a promotional offer. This is the only luxury hotel we stayed at.

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View from our hotel window

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They really have good service. I've noted that a toddler will be with us so they prepared a bath sponge and tooth care kit for YT.  This is the first time YT showered with a sponge! She's so happy.

Day 6 Takayama

Again, it was a rainy day and because of that, we didn't really manage to see much sights. We did visit the local library though and it was housed in some cool colonial style kind of building. We spend our time sampling food.

 Ahh, mitarashi dango, my favourite. Japanese rice ball coated with a sweet and salty soya sauce

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Takayama old town

Ice cream on a rainy winter day? Nice! The Hida beef yakitori is oishii too!

Various sarubobo, there are even hello kitties ones

Colourful sweets on display

Day 5 Takayama - Shirakawago

The day started out promising. The sun is out finally after days of nothing but rain for hours. We were going further up the mountains to Shirakawago. The bus ride took about 90 mins. This was a vastly shortened time from before they built the expressway. The ride used to take more than 2 hours. We went straight to the folk village in Shirakawago which is an open air museum of thatched roof houses. 

 

 

 For some reason, YT is not in a very good mood and eventually the rain still arrived to dampen the overall mood. We had some very nice buns or rather ‘paos’ there though. We tried one with chestnut filling, this is seasonal and may not always be available, and the famous Hida beef filled pao. The beef one is nice but all the food in this area are much more expensive than in Takayama. Then again, this is an open air museum afterall. It is like eating within Singapore Zoo, even the drinks go up in price. But of course, we are well prepared with snacks and water. 

 Look carefully at that little face. A closer shot below.

Store selling some food stuff. It is some rice cake thing on stick with soya sauce. Nice but cheaper elsewhere

It seemed to be our fate to take the more vertical path in this region. Once again we climb mountains only find that a gently sloping road is on the other side. Oh well, at least climbing down, which I considered the more hazardous action, is easy going. Many of the gassho houses are preserved households, each a miniature museum in their own right. We visited only one of the houses. It costs 300 yen per adult to enter one. The pictures are shown above.

Mountain climbing with a toddler strapped infront of me

 View from the top

Shirakawago could have been more beautiful if there were less touristy shops and tourists around. It felt a bit over-commercialised, especially when the newer buildings are so conspicuous among the thatched roof houses. I believed it could be very beautiful in deep winter though, where fewer tourists will be around and everything gets carpeted with snow such that only the thatched roof houses will stand out in sharp contrast.

 A meal of self cooked okonomiyaki at the end of the day. Oishii!