Day 1: Saturday, 17 October 2009
Dec. 10th, 2009 02:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
radhardenedOn Saturday morning I awakened bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, hopping on a Meitetsu train—Airport Rapid Limited Express "μ-SKY" if I recall correctly—to get from the airport to Nagoya Station. In Nagoya I breakfasted on a glass of milk and a matcha roll. Riveting details, I know. :)
From Nagoya Station I rode the Hida to Takayama, a scenic ride that takes a few hours. I had some company on this ride, though, in the form of an older salaryman-type who was inebriated enough to spontaneously chat with this gaijin. He was traveling with a tour group, another member of which eventually reined him in and apologized to me, but not before we had a winding and not-entirely-comprehensible conversation about things to do in Gifu, our jobs and families, politics, and who-knows-what.
For me Takayama was just a stopping-over point on the way to an out-of-the-way village, but in the interest of not rushing around insanely I would spend the rest of the day and night in Takayama before venturing farther afield. A few weeks prior I had failed to find any available lodging in Takayama more exotic than Best Western, so once I got to town I dropped off my luggage there and headed eastward down Kokubunji Street, across the Miya River, and into the historic district. I bought some sashiko supplies and an umbrella to fend off the impending rain. Amid stands selling dango and aromatic senbei hot off the grill, souvenir shops peddled the town's well-known wooden crafts and sarubobos. Even though it was cool and rainy, I stopped by one of the snack stands for a soft-serve matcha ice cream, the first in a glorious line of soft-serve ice cream I would consume on this trip. :) After some more walking and browsing, I headed back to the hotel for a nap. In the evening I was feeling more hungry than discerning, so I plopped myself down at a little donburi joint in the neighborhood of the hotel for a bowl of ebidon, which turned out to be ebi katsudon. Back at the hotel, I sucked up the last of the Internet access I'd have for a few days—weeks if we're talking access from my own laptop—to e-mail T-mobile about my not-yet-finding-a-signal-in-Japan-as-promised GSM cell phone and turned in for the night.
Here are the pictures I took in Takayama. While I'm thinking of it, I want to complain about the poor resolution of Yahoo's (and thus Flickr's) maps of Japan. It makes geotagging from within Flickr difficult.
From Nagoya Station I rode the Hida to Takayama, a scenic ride that takes a few hours. I had some company on this ride, though, in the form of an older salaryman-type who was inebriated enough to spontaneously chat with this gaijin. He was traveling with a tour group, another member of which eventually reined him in and apologized to me, but not before we had a winding and not-entirely-comprehensible conversation about things to do in Gifu, our jobs and families, politics, and who-knows-what.
For me Takayama was just a stopping-over point on the way to an out-of-the-way village, but in the interest of not rushing around insanely I would spend the rest of the day and night in Takayama before venturing farther afield. A few weeks prior I had failed to find any available lodging in Takayama more exotic than Best Western, so once I got to town I dropped off my luggage there and headed eastward down Kokubunji Street, across the Miya River, and into the historic district. I bought some sashiko supplies and an umbrella to fend off the impending rain. Amid stands selling dango and aromatic senbei hot off the grill, souvenir shops peddled the town's well-known wooden crafts and sarubobos. Even though it was cool and rainy, I stopped by one of the snack stands for a soft-serve matcha ice cream, the first in a glorious line of soft-serve ice cream I would consume on this trip. :) After some more walking and browsing, I headed back to the hotel for a nap. In the evening I was feeling more hungry than discerning, so I plopped myself down at a little donburi joint in the neighborhood of the hotel for a bowl of ebidon, which turned out to be ebi katsudon. Back at the hotel, I sucked up the last of the Internet access I'd have for a few days—weeks if we're talking access from my own laptop—to e-mail T-mobile about my not-yet-finding-a-signal-in-Japan-as-promised GSM cell phone and turned in for the night.Here are the pictures I took in Takayama. While I'm thinking of it, I want to complain about the poor resolution of Yahoo's (and thus Flickr's) maps of Japan. It makes geotagging from within Flickr difficult.
