Day 13 - Takayama, Futarishizuka ryokan, Heianraku restaurant

We left Kanazawa and headed off to the mountains for Takayama. It was a rather long train ride of about 3 hours and a train changeover before we arrived. The train went through the Japanese countryside which was amazingly beautiful. As Japan is a rice country, it seems that most flat land is given to rice paddies. The art of making terraced rice paddies seem to be dying out, with machinery these days, it is cheaper and easier to make and maintain a field on level ground. Thus the abundance of rice fields. It was interesting to see people's backyards as paddy fields.

We were booked for the Futarishizuka ryokan, which is located straight up the hill from the train station. Google maps showed roughly where it was, but not the exact location, but with lots of pointing and confused faces, we finally got shown in the right direction.

At the entrance, it's off with your shoes and on with the house slippers. There was also a display board welcoming all the residents. I guess we were not the only foreigners staying there that day.

After checking in, we were shown to our rooms.

We were in room 216 on the right. Each of those grille sliding doors had a different animal engraved into the wood. Ours was a crab. Slide the door open, leave your slippers in there and open a second door into your room.  This was our lounge/dining area.

We were shown around the room by an elderly maid. The cupboard above the fridge held yukata, one of the first thing she checked when she saw me was to see if the yukata was too long (I'm very short). She was right, the yukata was a tad too long and she had to go and find a shorter one for me. A small amenity bag containing a toothbrush and a wash cloth for your sento (public bath) is also provided.

Our bedroom area. I was a bit disappointed, I was expecting Japanese style sleep-on-the-floor beds.

Each room came with a cypress bath, but there is also the public bath option

A quick snack of tea and biscuits before we were off to explore Takayama

View from the front balcony of the hotel. Takayama town.

Just a few streets away is Sanmachi, it is a preserved area of shops dating back to the Edo period. The shops are open during the day, all selling a variety of different things.

This display was fascinating. It is situated above a gutter and the running water spins a wheel that makes the doll move. The doll will put the box down and when it lifts it up a different Takayama specialty is displayed. Here it is showing Hoba miso, more on that later.

If you like saka, Takayama is a place to go. Quite a few breweries in town, just look for a the ball of cedar branches outside. Breweries used to hang these outside when they were maturing a batch of sake. The ball is green when first hung, when it dried up and turned brown, it meant that the batch of sake was ready!

I have to say, I'm not a big fan of sake, so the breweries did not interest me.

Food is what interests me and with a Tripadvisor recommendation in hand, we ended up in Heianraku restaurant. Supposedly known for home style cooking with lots of vegetables thrown in, we decided to give it a go. Inside, there is a long counter in front of the chef where you can sit, or you can have a table (shoes off to sit there). We were seated at the table and had a great view of the whole shop. The decor was great, it seemed that they collected whatever antique they could find and hung it up on the walls. There is a also a glass counter where they have collected different currencies from around the world displayed. We saw she already had Australian money. There she is, getting some sake for customers, plus she speaks good English.

First up, my honey ginger tea. Hubby had his draft beer, how boring :P

First round was salad, which came with each of our main meals anyway. It was nice not having cabbage as the only vegetable for once.

Then a round of gyoza each

Then my main meal of Hoba miso. Takayama is known for a version of miso that is not as salty as typical miso. Mine was a sizzling hotplate of vegetables topped with miso, you mix it all together and the hotplate adds a slight but delicious char flavour to the miso. On it's own it is still a bit salty, but with rice, it was lovely.

Hubby went for tofu topped with miso. This was nice too, but I liked all the vegetables in mine.

The place was very busy in the evening, but the owner was kind enough to give us some chocolate for dessert. By that time, there were people waiting for tables and we decided it was time to go

After walking around the old town we headed back up to the hotel.

View of Takayama at night. Looks like it was quite hazy.

I tried out the public bath, there were people in there so I couldn't take photos. I always thought that the etiquette was to shower first then enter the bath, but there were quite a few Japanese that just hopped into the bath, then came out to shower. Interesting...

The next day we were off to explore the morning markets and the Folk village.