On the 1st May Neen headed off early to see the Fish market in Tokyo - Jacqui didn't fancy the early start so had an extra hour in bed  She did however sort out changing one of our flights so we could flight directly from Japan to Brisbane to see her Aunty Kath and Uncle Rob.  We then got on our first Shinkansen train bound for Nagoya and on to Takayma.  The trains are so good - all seat recline, they are clean and on time within minutes!!!!  Much better than any system we have travelled upon.  We arrived in Takayama and headed to our hotel where we had a small bed again!!!  We had a nice wander around the old streets which have old merchants houses in dark wood.  Very beautiful.  We then decided to treat ourselves to a posh Japan meal and headed for a restaurant which has been in the same family since 1794.  It served Honzen meals which is basically a 10 course meal of small taster courses. The food was fantastic, we had our own room where we sat on the floor at the low table with our own lady dressed up in her kimono.  It was a great experience.

On the 2nd May we decided to hire bikes and head off to the Hida Cultural Village which basiclaly has 20 tradiitional buildings in for you to look at.  There are still houses like them in certain area's in Japan.  We got a bit wet as it was raining. We had lunch at a merchants house back in Takayama - that again was very nice for the atmosphere and to eat traditional food.  We then rode around takayman taking in parks on the sides of Hills (Jacqui was not able to cycle up the hill), temples and a number of museums.  We visited a palace that had been built in 1615, a museum with a reproduction of the temples in Nikko and a museum with lots of floats in.  These floats are brought out twice a year for festivals.  They are rather spectacular and colourful.  That night we had a lovely dinner and tried Hida beef - WOW!!!!