After the wonderful night I had in the bus, I was ready for the day at 6h20, when the bus arrived Kanazawa. One of my concern about taking the night bus was that I would be exhausted form the lack of sleep in the bus. This was not of my concern anymore as I passed sleept as much as I would in a regular day; I would highly recommend the night buses of Nohi Bus Co. to everyone. Once in Kanazawa, my goal was Shirakawa-go and I knew there was a bus line that connected the two cities, but I also knew it was on reservation only, which I didn't had, so I instead headed toward Takayama and take a reservation free bus over there. This plan turned out great since I would have arrived a little bit too early in Shirakawa if I took the bus from Kanazawa.
It was a pleasant bus ride among the montains of Gifu and the colorful leaves of the surrounding trees and after 50min, we arrived to my long awaited destination (Shirakawa-go was among the first placed I wanted to visit in Japan). The temperature was cloudy and incoming rain was obvious, but I didn't care as I actually love rain; not only it's relaxing, but it also chase away other tourists. In the end I had a good 4h of sightseeing without anyway and that is plenty to quickly visit most of the village. I first had to drop my bags at the gasshō-zukuri I was staying at : Yokichi. The owner was very kind from the start, taking my bags away and offering me an umbrella although it wasn't raining yet and then I set off for my first sight, the famous viewpoint of Shirakawa-go. Got my picture taken and preinted by some kind of tourism association that was there and admired the awesome view. There was a small shrine not so far from there were I decided to go take a look and some tourists were already there; the thing is that one of them had dropped his bag on the shrine like it was some kind of shelf... Gotta hate stupid tourists.
After that, I walked around the village looking at the various farmhouses and visited the local shinto shrine known for their annual festival where they produce some kind of bitter nihonshuu that I actually tasted after visiting the festival museum. Rain started to pour now, but I didn't really cared that much, as the ambiance in the village during rain time was simply great. It was starting to get cold though so after a while I made my way to the room. I had seen most of the village at that time, so I simply relaxed in the room and also made a visit to the local onsen, which was slightly disappointing, but after the onsen resort I visited in Zao, most of onsen would seems disappointing. As for dinner, there was two tables; one with a Japanese and Chinese couple and the other one with me, a French couple and a German couple. I realized during the dinner that among the guests, I was the one with the best mastery of Japanese after the Japanese couple of course. I heard them trying to start a conversation with the Chineses, but they weren't able to respond very well. That made me slightly disappointed since my own table was silent and I would have liked to practise my Japanese in that context; at least the owner was addressing me in japanese since she knew I understood a good part of it.
When to a last walk that time, but during darkness, which was very atmospheric since nobody was left in the town; the Shrine at night time was especially something great (and slightly scary). Went to bed after.
And yes, I have seen Higurashi no Naku Koro ni and am a big fan of it.
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