Wonderful train ride - Hida Express

After a leisurely morning in Takayama we boarded our train out of the mountains, headed back to the East coast and the big city of Nagoya.

A few words about the trains. Japanese trains have a reputation for reliability and punctuality. we have also found them to be clean and comfortable, quick and convenient. There is often a snack cart selling food and drinks. On many trains, the seats can be rotated so we get to sit in a group facing each other. A few pictures below show what this particular train looked like. The passage between cars had vending machines, a large toilet and separate wash basin. Amtrak could learn a few things from the Japan Rail system!




In my opinion, the best features of this particular train were the big windows and open front.



I spent most of this ride sitting in that front row of seats, looking over the driver's shoulder watching the small towns pass by, looking across the river at mountains and hydro dams.



Every twenty minutes or so we would hit a siding and a train would pass in the other direction.



This was the other half of the ride from two days ago that I was not able to document, so it should give you an idea of what it looked like. The pictures do not capture the beauty really, the mist over the water and the raging rapids that would appear and disappear. The cliffs and the tangled jungle of undergrowth on the hillsides. Anyway it was a great ride, I enjoyed it immensely.




After arriving in Nagoya we took a Shinkansen (bullet train) one stop to a suburb where I found an amazing hotel deal. ( We also got to watch the express train zoom by - still cool the second time!)

Anyway - for about $145 we have two adjacent rooms at a "business hotel," very comfy and modern, of course air conditioned with internet and TV, complimentary admission to the Onsen (hot spring) IN the hotel, which happens to be one of the nicest ones we have been to in my opinion! A night-time snack in the restaurant and breakfast tomorrow morning are also included. We paid almost as much for a single room at the hostel, sleeping on the floor, with shared bathrooms, no Onsen at all, shared TV and access to a shared kitchen! Anyway we are all psyched for this, our last night on the road.

Tomorrow we have a big surprise in store for the girls........check in soon to find out what it was!

Takayama is beautiful

Now we understand why this town is crawling with tourists. It is incredibly beautiful, charming, cute, sweet, and picturesque. All of the major tourist sites are within easy walking distance. It seems to hold the perfect balance between ancient Japan and modern Japan.

First, let me mention that we are staying at a place called "J-hoppers," a small private chain of youth hostels. We have a "family room" which is very comfortable.

We share bathrooms and showers, which we are used to by now, and there is a large shared kitchen as well as several sitting rooms. There is always some hip music playing in the lobby. The staff speak good english and are always cheerful and ready to offer advice. We met some Jewish travelers, the first time that has happened, and shared some stories about Japanese perceptions of Jews. (Basically some Japanese people have no clue what Jews are and assume that we are a Christian sect like Mormons!) Anyway this place has grown on us and we now really like it here!

This morning we started off just walking out the door and heading for the market and shrine districts. We stopped to eat some food at a riverbank. There were little neighborhood shrines along the way and even tourist rickshaws driving about.



The streets here are narrow and packed with shops of all kinds. There are several streets that are "preserved" and look as they would have several hundred years ago.



Like most Japanese cities, this place has several rivers running though it. The bridges are very pretty, and there are houses and trees right along the edges of the river. Also like most Japanese rivers, there are concrete barriers along the edges, but here they somehow look prettier. Check out the pictures.


After breakfast we walked up the hill to the temple district. There are a series of temples on the hillside. They were beautiful structures with beautiful gardens. Between the temples were graveyards with paths and there were lizards darting between them.



After our walk and a little Benna meltdown, we returned to the shopping district for food. We tried another noodle shop and sampled some local specialties - "Zaro Soba" and "Mountain Vegetable Udon." The soba was cold, served with fresh scallions, and you dip it in the broth.



The udon was fantastic, and it was a delight for Aleeza to finally find something on the menu that had no meat in it!



We walked some more, we just couldn't get enough of the town. Here are some houses, typical for this area. We discovered this nest of sparrows under the roof of a house.



After some dowwntime, we returned to the first noodle place we had visited and ordered the house summer specialty, "Tomato Ramen."


This was the best food item of the week for me. That's not too shabby because it was a good week for food! The broth was a creamy tomato basil broth, with some meat and fresh scallions and grated parmesan cheese, and fresh hot ramen noodles. Jana had grilled meat on rice, the girls shared a plain bowl of Ramen.



After that feast we took a shuttle bus to a local hotspring "onsen" spa. Nice place, lots of different hot baths to play in. I was of course alone on the men's side, so I got bored and went to the restaurant where I discovered that they were having a SALE on Chivas Regal whiskey, shots for 200 yen, about 2 bucks. I ordered a shot and a draft beer, and they came in similar sized glasses. I couldn't imagine paying more for beer than Chivas, so I downed it and ordered another.


By the time the girls came out I was ready to explain the plot of the gameshow I had been watching, but I couldn't tell when the show ended and the commercials started. Oh well, time to board the shuttle bus and get driven around town some more!

Now it's off to bed and rest for another day. Tomorrow night will be our last night "on the road." I will write more about it later.

From the mountains to the sea and back again

We woke up this morning in Hakuba, after four days and nights. The girls agreed that it was their favorite part of the trip so far, probably because most of the other guests were families with kids. But we resisted the temptation to stay there longer, and we caught an 11:28 (exactly!) train headed west.

The first leg was on the Azusa, a train we had ridden twice before, and then we were to take a smaller local train. Based on my research, I told the girls to expect a smaller train, with a diesel engine instead of electric. How right I was! The local train was actually a single car, basically a bus on tracks.



The driver eased us along a very curvy single track, with tunnels opening onto bridges and diving back into tunnels. The mountains rose up on the sides, and a lovely river sat below us at the bottom of the valley. It was raining on and off, and mist hung on the slopes and over the water. The ride was very scenic and took about an hour.


The passengers on this train were also very interesting. Most of them were hikers with big packs and big boots. Many were obviously tired, including this guy. He was quite a sight, with his thick train schedule book open in his lap, his funky t-shirt with nonsensical English phrases on it, and his mouth wide open, gently snoring as we bumped along.



We arrived on time in Itoigawa, a cute town where two tectonic plates meet, where Jade is found on the beaches, and where the mountains meet the sea. We changed there to a fast train called the Snow Rabbit, which zoomed us down the coast. We tried to see China off in the distance but the best we could do was a peninsula off the coast. (China is in that direction but much farther!)



Now we have seen both coasts of Japan. Woop-dee-doo!

That train took us to Toyama, a rather average and somewhat bleak city as far as we could tell. The weather was gray and rainy, which didn't help improve the appearance of the place. I took a picture here of a "sento," which is the public bath house. Notice the sign with the little steaming water picture? (Also you can see the "Lawson" convenience store next door.)



Benna and I spent about an hour walking around the downtown area, trying to find her an acceptable ice-cream bar. After rummaging around the ice-cream coolers of about four convenience stores, she decided to have fried chicken, THEN ice cream. I was grinding my teeth in frustration, and eventually decided to cave in to my own gastric desires and stop at an Udon shop.

I discovered a little sit-at-the counter noodle shop, the kind of shop where you buy a ticket at a vending machine when you enter, then present it to the cook. It seems like a crazy system at first, (and it IS crazy when there are two cooks and no other customers!) but it actually makes the place run very efficiently when it gets busy. Anyway, here's what the vending machine looks like.



As you can imagine, if you don't know what any of the buttons say, it is tough knowing what to order, and the two young cooks were not exactly smiling at us as we deliberated so I decided to just put in my money and take my chances, ordering based solely on price. I had the "not the cheapest but not the most expensive." It was really good! The soup was curry flavored, and it had delicious udon noodles, fresh scallions, an egg, and ground meat that I hope was beef. Yes, Benna "helped" me eat it. Notice the self-serve chopsticks and little dispenser of cayenne pepper. (Slurp..slurp..yummmmm!)



We returned to the station at the appointed hour to meet Jana and Aleeza. They had spent their afternoon window shopping, which is to say they didn't buy anything and had managed to not have anything to eat either. I was tired and grumpy so I did what any reasonable person in that position would do - I walked ten feet to the nearest sweets stand and bought myself a green tea flavored soft-serve ice cream.



After everyone had refueled and our bags had been retrieved from the coin lockers, We boarded our last train for the day, the Hida Wide-View express. Sadly my camera was out of memory and battery power, but let me say that the scenery on that ride was even more dramatic and spectacular than the morning ride. It was a train with huge windows and an open front window so you can look right over the driver's shoulder. I really really really enjoyed it! Jana and I sat in the front row while the girls entertained themselves and ignored the awesome scenery.



We are now in Takayama, a very cute small city in the mountains. We are staying at a Hostel, which is nice except we feel really old and are resentful of the young people socializing and making friends! It is nice and comfortable, though, and of course cheap. This town, however, is crawling with foreigners. The downtown restaurants and bars were packed - with foreigners! Where are the Japanese? Hiding?

We'll see what it looks like in the daylight tomorrow, and hopefully I will have some nice pictures and stories from this, the last stop on our tour.

Chillin' in the heat

We really enjoyed having a "down day" yesterday. The weather in Japan has remained exceptionally hot, and even though we are at elevation in town (1800 meters I think) it is hot up here.

We spent the morning at the lodge, doing scavenger hunts and socializing a bit with other guests, just "chilling out" in the relative cool indoor space. But by lunchtime we were ready to do something, so we set our sights on the nearby river which we had been told was nice to swim in.

We started out in the now blazing heat, lathered in sunscreen and stocked with water and food. Oh, and a map too, but for some reason we decided not to look at it until we reached what we thought was our destination. Things didn't look like we expected, specifically there was no obvious access to the river from the bridge we were standing on. A quick check of the map revealed that we were at the wrong bridge. Ooops.

This information was not well received by the kids, but we managed to convince them that we were "almost there" and on we trudged. It turned out to be one of those fortunate mistakes, because our recovery led us through an interesting neighborhood of cute chalets tucked into the trees. About ten minutes later, I found a path that led down to the stream just above a beautiful swimming hole.



At that point I realized that I did not bring my crummy sneakers that I had lugged all over the country. I had no intention of walking in the water in my brand new walking sneakers, so the stream time was not as wonderful for me as it was for the girls. But on the whole I would say that we all enjoyed chilling in the clear cool mountain stream...for a while.

After eating lunch, Jana and the kids decided to move downstream to a different spot. As I mentioned, this was difficult for me because I had to go barefoot which was quite painful due to my foot problem. Standing in the stream trying to navigate the slippery rocks, I happened to look upstream and noticed that the outlines of two big excavating machines were no longer idle but had started moving. I watched as the big arms moved up and down and I could hear the sound of earth crunching and crashing. Sure enough, within five minutes the river had turned from crystal clear to earthy brown. What a bummer!



So that kind of put a damper on the enthusiasm for sitting in the stream! Combined with the menacing clouds, we felt that it was time to pack it in. We gathered our things and headed downstream along another path we had discovered.



The new path led back to the first bridge, where lo and behold we discovered the other family from the lodge playing among the rocks. We stopped to see what they were up to and before long the kids and adults were engrossed in building little dams to divert the flow of water across a series of concrete erosion barriers. A short time later, the skies opened up and it poured, but were were totally protected by the highway bridge above our heads. So we watched the rainstorm and worked on our dams for another hour or so, and soon it was time to think about dinner.

First Jana left, then the other family, but the girls had become so involved in a game of competing rock-crushing businesses that they didn't want to leave! I got them to agree to walk back by carrying a bunch of their special rocks back to the lodge. Once we got to the road, I regretted making this deal, but of course I kept my word and now we have a bunch of rocks on the back porch waiting to be played with.

Today we expect another slow and easy day.