Takayama

I am back in Japan again for our family trip this July. This trip just came to me when I was attending the annual travel expo held every February and Takayama had a booth. I had seen a few pictures of shirakawa go before but the travel expo really gave me the idea to visit.

I booked a flight to Osaka... but I would later find out that it would be easier to fly to Nagoya and jump off from there to Gifu prefecture.

But then, we already had tickets to Osaka. So first option for us was to take a train. They have trains running from Osaka station (direct trains because I don't want to transfer trains and risk getting lost). We took the HIDA limited express train #25 from Osaka (click here) which leaves at platform 11. They also have trains from nagoya which will be faster.

You can also opt to take the bus ( see here ). the bus station also has bike rentals and luggage storage facilities if you want to take that option. We took this option going back to Osaka. I really enjoyed the ride through the mountains as Takayama is located in central Japan. (skiing is popular in winter) Both bus and train option takes about 4 hours.

TAKAYAMA

We booked an airbnb (which came out cheaper for our 11 pax party) and explored the city. Takayama is the center od HIDA beef of of the three famous brands of wagyu in Japan (other being kobe and matsunaga)

beef sashimi

We visited the old houses in town which preserved all the cooking methods and structures. It was quite interesting.

cooking mama

 another interesting thing is, the rivers had KOI swimming in them!

One of the MUST SEE places is the OLD TOWN which had a lot of preserved buildings (UNESCO sight) They had a lot of local artisans  shops (some, I might say, are quite expensive) and food (very touristy)

local artisan making wooden keychains

Japan in July is very humid (but I had no choice since it was the only time the kids were free) and sometimes, it would rain, which what happened when  we went to the old town.

rainy

I loved walking in the morning market, which is located near the river. There were people who sold vegetables, coffee in a edible cup, some local preserved veggies,

The kids were quite happy with eating hida beef skewers (which were available everywhere) and cooking steak at our airbnb.

You can opt to take the NOHI bus also to tour the other parts of town like the HIDA FOLK VILLAGE. The bus station is located near the tourist center in the middle of town. We didn't get to go there since we already went to shirakawa go and hida no sato (which I will talk about in the next blog)