Ryokan de rirakkusu

Wednesday 6 July 2016

After pre-breakfast of yogurt, hot cakes and drip coffee, we left the older kids to have a bit of a sleep in, while we had toast and jam with barista coffee at the tiny bar of our hotel. Kerryn really enjoyed her first real latte in two weeks - saikodesu na!

We packed our bags and headed to the station to organise the train trip to Takayama. We had a bit of a wait for our train so Kerryn browsed around the gourmet foods section of the depato at the station while I took the kids for morning tea - coffee for me and waffles for them. 

We grabbed some maki nori bento and sandwiches before boarding the Shinkensen for a short trip to Toyama. Then transferred to a  three carriage limited express to Takayama. Not able to get reserved seats for this train but plenty of room in the non-reserve car. Although this trip was slow (rolling along at only around 60kph), it was very picturesque as we climbed away from the flat rural regions of Ishikawa and Toyama into the mountains, following alongside the Miyagawa  River, across bridges and through many tunnels.

It was a short walk uphill to our accommodation in Takayama, the Yamakyu ryokan. 

Shoes off at the front door; slippers on to be shown to our traditional tatami room, where we sat on the floor and enjoyed a relaxing afternoon tea - ocha and sarubobo (happy monkey baby) biscuits. 

Refreshed from the ocha, we walked into the old part of Takayama. Unlike the other big cities we had visited, Takayama is a country town - no high rise buildings here with mostly 2 or 3 story houses. We wandered through the older part of town admiring the historic wooden buildings. There were a few locals out watering their pot plants or cleaning their doorways with water from channels running alongside the streets.  

We did a bit of poking around the shops for a few souvenirs - sarubobo being the local specialty item. 

We had a spectacular Japanese feast in the dining room at our ryokan. Prepared by some of the local grandmothers, there were 12 different dishes along with ocha and hot sake. Most of the foods were new to us and we where a bit unsure of etiquette and how to start, but our kind kimono-clad waitress just smiled and told us to eat it all. It was absolutely amazing food, all very tasty, with the sashimi, tempura and beef and tofu hotpot (cooked over a candle-burner at the table) where the highlights. The hot sake was also fantastic!

We were very full after dinner 

so we slipped into yukatas 

and some of us tried out the 'underground' onsen - after carefully studying the etiquette (thankfully an English version was provided). It was very relaxing but the spring water was very warm so you couldn't soak for too long in the bath.