< Hirayu-Onsen | Japan (Spring 2003) | Kanazawa >
Takayama
2003.May.30 - 2003.Jun.01
Takayama surely is living on tourists for a big deal. There is one street which is preserved in the very old style. Impossible to shoot a good picture of it without masses of tourists. Actually I did attempt to do that, getting up at 5 o'clock in the morning. But unfortunately it was raining, so the pictures would not have turned out well.
What I also realized: Takayama seems not to have any department stores. There are a couple of very small stores called 
supermarket, but I could not find a single big department store. Probably they do have a very strong code saying what kind of buildings are allowed. They do have, however, pachinko...
One night I had dinner at a restaurant specializing in Tempura. On the board listing that days recommendations, there was also raw whale meat. Of course I had to take the opportunity. Nowadays it is very rare to find whale meat, even in Japan, not to mention kujira no sashimi.
Hida-no-sato is a large open-air museum in Takayama with lots of old, traditional houses you can even go in. It reminded me of Ballenberg, the Swiss open-air museum. Even though it does cover a large area, I imagined it to be bigger from the description in the guidebook.
When I called my parents-in-law, I learnt that JAL had been trying to contact me a number of times. When I called up JAL, they told me what I had expected all along: the direct flight back to Switzerland had been cancelled as well. No problem. But the flight they offered me as a replacement meant that instead of arriving in the afternoon and being able to get home without any problem, I would be arriving in the evening and would have to hurry to catch the last bus home.
< Hirayu-Onsen | Japan (Spring 2003) | Kanazawa >