Although comfortable, the night was rather cold as the gas heater automatically turned itself off during the night, the thermometer indicated 11 Celsius degrees when I woke up. I did slept well though, I don't mind cold weather at all; 11°C is enough to make me realized it's slightly cold. I took things easy on that morning as my next destination was not so far (Takayama), so I took my time dressing up and when I was zip my jacket, I see on the mirror some kind of huge insect that was on my jacket. Now normally if I were in Canada, I would have had a rather good idea of the insect on first sight; if it's dangerous or not, etc, but now I was in Japan and I had not a freaking idea of what that thing was ! I quickly pushed that thing off me (took two times) and it landed directly in the garbage bin on the opposite side of the room; talk about aiming. On a closer look ,it looked like some sort of cross over between a spider and a grasshopper...
After that and a wonderful Japanese breakfast, I checked out, but left my bag in the lobby and went for a walk once again. I had been anticipating visiting Shirakawa-go for almost 3 years and I really wanted to enjoy being there. It rained for the whole night but in the surroundings mountain, there was now snow on the top of them. Add to that some rustic farmhouses in a calm village during morning plus a rainbow and you get how it was like.
Left for Takayama by the same bus I came in.
Once in Takayama, I had with me a very helpful map of Takayama that was given to me while buying my bus ticket in Shirakawa; with that, I had no trouble passing by the post office and finding my ryokan with the most efficient and short way as possible. Once again, the staff were incredibly kind and I was soon in a wonderful Japanese room with a private toilet (I taught I wouldn't have one) and a nice view on the central canal of Takayama. Sumiyoshi was the name of the ryokan and of you're looking for a reasonably priced ryokan in Takayama, go there !
I went for the Higashiymama Walk first, walking in the beautiful city that is Takayama; getting to the starting point of the walk was pretty simple, but actually following the walk path was a bit more complicated despite the frequent sign posts. As I passed near the many temples, shrines and graveyards, the path was becoming harder to follow, especially when the signs were in kanji only; thinking I was on the good path I walked about 10 min in a very isolated road, thinking I was lost, I decided to go back (I already did about half of the walk, which was fine by me). As I traced back my way and passed that kanji sign I wasn't sure of the meaning, I realized I was actually on the good path... oh well. I spent the rest of my day walking around the Old Town of Takayama and drinking nihonshuu here and there i nthe various breweries in the town. I checked out a few quality souvenir shop that had superb handcrafted goods. As the sun set down, I returned to the ryokan to take a bath and enjoy a wonderful meal while relaxing.
Also note that the ryokan had an internet connection on a PC that was running on Windows 98, which is awesome.
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