Well hello there people we are now in Takayama part of the area called the Japan Alps. We had an amazing train journey up here which took over 2 hours but was well worth it. The train made its way over ravines, through mountains and past sleepy villages. We changed at Nagoya from Tokyo to catch this train. We arrived at Takayama station and it was packed full of day trippers and weekend familys. We later discovered that it was Kenkoku Kinem-bi (National Foundation Day) which is like a long weekend for Japan. Our hostel part of the K's House chain was bliss and we had our own bathroom. We decided to go out straight away and hunt down some food and we stumbled upon the main street which was quaint and had classical music playing from speakers. It was really peaceful until we found a beef noodle place that served the local meat called Hida Beef. Our stomachs played a loud rumbling tune and as if by magic we were in sat down order placed waiting in anticipation for this bowl of steamy deliciousness to be presented. When it came out it didn't dissapoint, the beef was so succulent, the noodles were just right and the broth well that was something else. Wagamamas was like a cheap dirty date and this soup was like a sophisticated partner you would only find at a high class venue. So we left the soup shop and we went back to the hostel where we did some internet browsing, we were going to do our Tokyo blog but and American couple who were talking really loud distracted us and we gave it a miss, to give the bloke some credit he did give us some tips about the next places.

Day 2

We decided to go to the out door market first which had a dozen uninspiring stalls so we moved on swiftly. May I add it was snowing heavily by now and the snow was blowing in our faces, cold but amazing. We found a street with old houses and Sake breweries that had free tours and tasting which we did and sake tasted like watered down whiskey. We then found a really cute coffee shop which had this really thck bread which we ordered and it was really yummy. The place had jazz playing from a grammer phone thing which I think Ellies dad would've found intresting. We then moved on to the temple which there were quite a few off. We stolled around the outskirts of Takayama looking, admiring and feeling really relaxed. Kamran went upbang on few occasions as the snow was deep and the road slippery. We decided to look for the Hida Folk Village via the station where we booked our train tickets to Kanazawa. We were now walking through a massive blizzard for about 1 hour and we finally found the village up a hill. We paid and entered to be presented by the original houses which you could look around. They were intresting however Ellie told me that she saw a sign for free pickle and rice cake which I found took over my whole thought process. We got to the hut and we got a green tea and sat around being given pickles (mushroom, cabbage, horseradish etc) and a really doughy rice cake. We then found a slope where we did some sledging, I was going to try the sking but was scared I would fly over the hill and get wedged in a temple awning. Cold and hungry we made our way back to the hostel to defrost our thighs and decided it would be silly if we didn't go back to the same restraunt as we went the night before.

All in all we found Takayama a really charming place which we both loved and were sad to be leaving. We wish we could've stayed longer and seen some of the surrounding villages but as we are on a tight timescale we must move on.