We took the local express train from Tokyo station to Atami. Then from Atami, we took the local train to Usami a little beach town in Izu peninsular. This area is famous for Onsen, hot springs. We stayed at a Minshuku, a cheaper bed and breakfast type place. The family rent out rooms to tourists. We went and drop off our bags and it looks like we are the only one there that day, it was a Tuesday I think.
We are going to look around the peninsular a bit so we got a bento lunch from a store near the station. The bento has stir fried beef, a piece of chicken, preserved veggies and a little salad, and some other things I forgot. Michelle got a little box of mushroom rice, that was really good. We also got a big fried ebi, yumm...
We took the local train to Jogasaki station and walked to the coast, it was 1.5km walk with a gentle slope downhill. I thought it would be difficult to walk back up hill, but I didn't have any problem, just had to go slow. The Jogasaki coast has a cool suspension bridge. It was a little scary, but cool. I got a green tea soft serve ice cream.
Here is the view of the bridge and light house. The bridge didn't look scary here because the rock is blocking the view of the water.
We took this "black ship train" back toward our minshuku. We got off at Ito to get dinner though. The Minshuku can make and serve dinner in the room, but it will cost 2500Y each so we just go get dinner in town. We are out and about anyway. The black ship train has comfortable seats facing the view, really nice.
Dinner. I got Soba noodle and Michelle got Udon noodle. We both got the noodle with a disc of fried shrimp, mussels, and veggies. Japanese people seems to eat a lot of fried food. I think most noodle shops closed at 5pm too. This place was starting to clean up around 5pm.
Here is a picture of our Otsuka Minshuku. The lady owner is really nice. I think this place has 5 stories and 4 rooms on floor 2 to 5. So probably 16 rooms max.
Here is our room, 301. This is actually 2 rooms, the rooms has wooden screens to seperate them. Since we were the only guests, they took down the screen and we had a big 12 tatami mat room with beach view.
We rested a bit then go down to take a hot spring bath in the basement. They had 2 small hot spring rooms. We got the smaller one to ourselves. The tub was pretty small and only big enough for 2 people, but the hotspring water was really nice. Our skin were nice and smooth afterward.
The next day we activated our Japan Rail pass and took the Shinkansen to Nagoya and then to Takayama. Here is Mount Fuji. We only saw Fuji from the train this trip.
From Nagoya, we took a local express train to Takayama. The view is really nice with a lot of rivers and country towns.
I got mican oranges from the market and got this peeler from the minshuku. At first I thought it was just orange and ate half of the first one with out peeling all the inner skins off. It was really bitter. Then I figured out how the tool worked and was able to peel the fruit correctly. You are suppose to just eat the orange flesh and take out all the skin.
Cold soba noodle with dipping for lunch in Takayama. It was really hot that day too, I got a headache and looked for aspirin from drug store. They didn't have any aspirin, but said bufferin will work.
After you eat all the noodle, they gave us some hot broth to pour in the sauce then you're suppose to drink the soup. It was too salty though so we only drank a little bit.
After lunch we took the bus to Hida village. They move old houses in this region to this place to make a museum/tourist attraction. It was really nice, I like it. Many of these houses were in places where they built dam so they were going to be flooded.
The roof is made from reeds and it took the whole village a week to finish one house. Then the roof will last 10 year? or something like that. The roof is really steep to keep the snow from building too much. This area has a lot of snow in the winter.
In one of the old houses, there was an old fashion stair. It is just a log with steps carved in.
Here is a bigger picture of a Gassho house.
Krok. :)
After the village tour, we came back to the Takayama town and headed toward the older part of town. This is the bridge crossing the river. I don't know what this guy is pointing to, maybe just stretching his finger.
On the other side walk at the bridge.
There are 3 old streets that are preserved to have the old feel. There are sake shops, sweet shops, green tea shops, and tourist stores.
For dinner, we went to Sazuya a place that Lonely Planet guidebook recommended. I had Hida beef. It is beef with onion, mush room, veggie, and fresh miso cooked at the table on Hoba leaf. This was really good, one of the best meal this trip. The beef was very very tender and taste great. This is Hida beef, suppose to be better than Kobe beef.
Michelle got another grill dish. Grill beef, mushroom, and veggie. This one is really good too. You can see mine at the bottom, the food is mixed up well now, yummmm...
After dinner, we walked around a bit more and got some boa for midnight snack because our ryokan is out of town.
The ryokan picked us up from the station. This ryokan is made of 2 gassho houses and another connecting structure. The ryokan is actually nearby the Hida village we toured earlier. The welcomed us in a traditional room with fireplace and gave us Japanese green tea, pretty bitter. Then they showed us to our room. This room is 8 tatami and pretty large. You can see our 3 bags in the background. We traveled pretty light this trip as usual.
We went for a shower and hot tub soak after a little rest. This place has really nice shower and hot tub. We reserved the place for our self from 7 to 8pm. The floor of the shower room has tatami mats too, that's surprising for us. The hot tub was big and the water was really really hot. Michelle could only get in half way and she looked like a half boiled lobster. I got in all the way and had a really nice short soak. After that, we went out to take a few pictures. Every places on our trip gave us yukata to wear at night except Toyoko Inn.
Michelle got a red outer garment. The hotel is in the background.
We paid 1000Y extra for traditional japanese breakfast. Actually pretty good.
This is a big dinning room with fire pit. The atmosphere is really good. There is only 2 other guys staying here beside us.
here is where our room was.
Next Kyoto....
Today is rose festival in Portland and I see they are racing dragon boats on the river. Michelle has toast masters so we are not going to the parade this year. We'll probably go see the floats tomorrow.
