Takayama, Japan

On Thursday 22nd December we travelled from Nagano to Takayama. This was meant to take about 3 and a half hours and involve two trains... The first leg, a shinkansen from Nagano to Toyama went without a hitch. However, at Toyama we found that our connecting train to Takayama had been cancelled due to an incoming storm and high winds. After hanging out at the train station for a while and seeing more and more trains cancelled, we realised it just wasn't going to happen. We talked to a very helpful women at the JR ticket office who managed to re-route us around the weather system. This did start with taking a shinkansen back to Nagano where we had just come from! Once back at Nagano it took three more changes of train and about 7 hours to get to Takayama. We didn't mind though, I had my kindle to read, and it gave Will a chance to catch up on some work, even if he did get interrupted by super-cute Christmas Pikachu coming to visit!

I had booked a couple of nights in Takayama as I had heard it was a lovely small alpine town that was very picturesque covered in winter snow... Unfortunately Will and I were visiting during an unseasonably warm winter, hence no snow to be seen at all! Now as you can see from the screenshot from my watch above, 'warm' is all relative... It was definitely cold enough to snow.

Despite the lack of snow, we had a lovely couple of days exploring Takayama. It has a very picturesque old town with the streets lined with traditional buildings.

The shop below only sold bunny themed products! We bought some very cute bunny rabbit magnets as a small memento.

There were some cool little craft stores and I couldn't resist the handbag below...

Takayama is famous for a big twice-yearly float festival, and a float from a previous year was on display in our hotel foyer.

When we arrived at our hotel we saw other guests (who were pretty much all Japanese) hanging out in the same clothing, even wearing the outfit while eating at the hotel restaurant. Sure enough, when we got to our room we found our own sets of pajamas laid out on the bed for us to use. Below you can see them beautifully modelled by Will!

When you leave your room you usually wear a quilted vest over top of the pajamas for extra warmth.

The reason I chose this hotel was that it had its own onsen. It would have been a real shame to come to Japan and not partake in the whole onsen experience. There are quite a few rules about how to onsen, so I thought trying it at a big hotel that is used to foreigners would be a pretty safe way of giving it a go. The hotel actually had two onsen. One was in the basement, but the other one, which we both used (separately of course -they are gender segregated) was up on the roof-top. It was an awesome experience going up there at night, soaking in your choice of several hot-pools and looking out over the town with the mountains in the distance, all while completely starkers! I can understand how the enforced nudity aspect might put some tourists off... After my 15-year rugby career where I would sometimes have to shower after the matches with 30 or so other women in communal showers, I didn't have any problems with it! Will enjoyed it so much that he got up early and fitted another soak in before catching our morning train to Kyoto.