Japan: 12th Sep 2015

I had breakfast. I later regretted eating so much. I'm sure I'm putting on weight again and at home I never eat much for breakfast anyway.

Around 9am we got the bus to downtown Takayama. From the train station bus stop we spent the day walking around and visiting places in town. This town is famous for its shrines and temples. It sort of reminds me of violet city from Pokemon.
The streets are very old and mainly organised in a grid formation with the river going left to right in the middle, with the shrine at the top and the train line at the bottom. Our tour guide took us around the town, starting from the market stalls at the river. I bought a giant peach and a local traditional lucky charm character named Sarubobo. Red is the traditional colour of this no-faced character but I bought mine in orange which means it will give me good luck with traveling and friendships. :p Its now on my bag.

We next visited the storehouse of portable shrines they use during the precessions of the two festivals that Takayama has in the year. A Miko priestess showed us round with our rep acting as translator.

I also heard Cicadas chirping in the trees which reminded me of Animal Crossing.

Its a very old town, with buildings and streets still preserved and well over 100 years old.

We all had pork based ramen for lunch at a local restaurant where we had to sit down in a funny low table thing, having to take our shoes off beforehand. The ramen was very nice.

Next we visited the old magistrates court which again was a traditional styled building. Again our rep acted as translator for the curator.

It was about 3pm and we were allowed to split up and do our own thing. Myself and one of the younger couples in the group wanted to visit an impressive looking shrine we past earlier. So looking at the map Yumi (our rep/guide) gave us, we tried to get there. Along the way we saw a random street jazz festival. The town is crowded by Japanese tourists.
We got to the temple, only it wasnt the one we wanted. We then found the one we wanted but it turned out to be a bit bland. I split up with the couple and headed east, uphill to where most of the temples and shrines were. It was a beautiful area. I decided to take a long walk up around the park and back into the town again. Just as I was heading over into a street i heard my name being called. It was the couple from earlier. I'm useless with names but they had found themselves at a cafe and wanted me to join them, so i did.
We nattered about how tiny the cars, pick ups and vans are over here. but considering how narrow the streets are, it makes sense.

We got the 8:30 bus back and I hit the spa then typed this.