Day 2 - 9th Feb 2013 (Shirakawago)

(T)We left Shin-Osaka early for our 2D1N excursion to Takayama/Shirakawago. As this was a weekend and super-peak season for Shirakawago, we were seated in separate areas on both the Shinkansen to Nagoya and the JR train to Takayama. We reached slightly past noon, and were greeted by snow-covered streets and huge crowds of tourists. The old uncle at the Tourist Information Center was anything but friendly - he was extremely curt and spoke English almost with contempt, and was very unhelpful. We decided to find our own way around instead, and located the our hotel Takayama Ouen (a highly-rated Dormy Inn hotel) not too far away from the station.

Naughty was instantly impressed by the Japanese-style entrance and the beautiful landscaping around the hotel. We were greeted by female staff dressed in Kimonos, and their friendliness was in stark contrast with the treatment we received just minutes ago. As check-in time was 3pm, we deposited our luggages and borrowed the hotel's snow boots, which did help to improve our walking speed on snow but provided no insulation whatsoever. We trudged around town looking for a lunch spot, but nothing caught Naughty's eyes. We decided to pick up our car and drive off towards Shirakawago first, and find something to eat along the way.

It's our 3rd time renting cars from Toyota, and the entire process took less than 10 minutes. We had reserved the car rental after failing to secure a place on the night tour with Nohi Bus to Shirakawago Light-up that night. We left the Takayama city, and stopped at an interesting-looking restaurant about 10km away from the city. After a quick glance at the set menu at the entrance, we decided to park our car and have lunch here. We each ordered a set meal, which came with a salad and a soup - a great relief in the freezing weather. Food was typical Japanese style, but tasted great nonetheless. We spent about 40 minutes there before setting off once again. (T)

(G)The drive was relatively fuss free except when it started to jam up close to our destination cos the queue for the car park was insane - all carparks were full (there were over 1000 lots) so the queue of cars snaked for several kilometers around the mountain and through a tunnel, and crawled for a few meters every 5-10 minutes. The Tobs had an excellent time enjoying the scenery and snapping pictures while I had to concentrate on the road. But it was spectacular - never seen so much snow in my life. (G)

Light up was supposed to start at 5.30pm but by 4.50pm or so we were still stuck in the queue for a car park space. Won't it be the funniest thing if we totally missed the light up, after traveling all the way here? But thank God, we managed to get a car park space in time and made it to the top just when the sun was setting. Of course by then all the excellent front row spots were taken up by all kinds of tripod stands and we had to struggle to obtain a decent view of the village. People were straying from the beaten paths, climbing up hills and perching themselves on trees for a clear visual. We were not as adventurous, and with our frozen toes and fingers we could hardly compete with those dressed comfortably in Goretex gear. After several failed attempts to snap a picture with decent exposure to capture the lighting, we settled for admiring the scenery and capturing it in our memory instead. While another Taiwanese backpacker had blogged about the lack of snow just a week before, God had miraculously caused it to snow heavily the night before our arrival, and recreated the gingerbread-house effect for us to soak in the fairytale atmosphere. The houses had a dreamy blueish glow initially, but then the sun set and it became pitch dark which accentuated the warm yellow lighting. We preferred the multi-hue effect of yellow + blue + black earlier on, so after the sun had set completely and the wind picked up, we decided to head back to the carpark and drive back early, so as to prevent ourselves from getting stuck in another traffic jam amidst the mass exodus of tourists after the light-up officially concludes.

We made it back to Takayama city 2 minutes before 8pm, the designated car return time and the closing time for Toyota office. Then we checked into our hotel and proceeded to dinner first. It has been quite a while since we last had a kaiseki at a hot spring resort, and while Takayama Ouan's set dinner was not quite conventional (a set meal with a semi-buffet spread), it was nonetheless delicious as expected. The highlight of the meal was the Hida beef, one of the three most famous types of beef in Japan, grilled on a palm leaf over a clay pot, dipped in Takayama's signature sweet-sour BBQ sauce. Unfortunately we had left it grilling for too long (while busy attacking the other dishes) and the texture was not as tender as we had hoped, it was still enjoyable.

After the sumptuous dinner, we went up for hot spring and were delighted to find private rooms available - FOC! Typically such rooms are rented out to guests at a fee. There were 3-4 such rooms, and after queuing for about 20 minutes, we got ourselves the smallest room, which was more than sufficient for two people anyway. The hot spring was excellent as expected, and relieved us of all the fatigue and freezing cold that plagued us through the day. After the hot spring, we returned to our room which has been set up nicely for the night, with mattresses and blankets laid out across the Tatami floor. We tucked in, gave a prayer of thanksgiving, and promptly fell asleep.

Day 1 - 8th Feb 2013 (Osaka)

10D10N Japan

Flights:
7 February 2013 2215 - 0600 (to Haneda) 0720 - 0835 (to Kansai)
17 February 2013 2330 - 0620 (from Kansai)
$1479.20 for 2 of us on ANA

*note row 15 is actually quite comfortable and close to the front of the plane

8th Friday - Osaka
Headed straight for Rinku Town and deposited our luggages (the big one requires a 500Y locker:() before checking out the conveyor belt sushi shop that we discovered last year. It opens at 11.30am so we spent a bit of time wandering about the new 100Y shop and the supermarket. When we got in, in our enthusiasm, we ordered 2 servings of what we thought was kaisen tempura moro but it was actually calamari. -____-"

but of course we ordered the correct thing later on. and 2 servings. each.

This was followed by shopping at the outlet which proved slightly unfruitful cos we only ended up getting a Samsonite work bag for the Tobs. We decided against getting footwear that is snow-appropriate since we will probably use it only once a year at most. And it snowed while we were enroute back to the station! (and we almost forgot entirely about our stored luggages - shame on us)

Stayed at Super Hotel near Shin Osaka station that had onsen (rostered for males and females). Was trying to find dinner in the station vicinity but nothing really caught my eye (and I was feeling slightly nauseous for some strange reason) so we ended up getting Horai gyozas (mega yums for such cheap price!) and then having Matsuya, which happened to also serve the nicest kimchi chigae I've ever had (seriously! who would have thought man).