The final day in Nagoya today. We were planning on sleeping in, leisurely packing up and venturing down to Kobe for a relaxing day. We could not have deviated from the plan much more if we'd wanted to.

I've been watching the weather reports for any chances of snow that were within reasonable visiting distances. We came close to seeing snow in Takayama at the start of the week, but even though it was cold enough, no snow fell.

According to the weather reports, if we were going to see snow anywhere, it was either going to be late yesterday, or today. Apparently a low pressure system passed over mainland Japan today, and from tomorrow onwards for the next few days temperatures are going to soar to a blistering 4 or 5 degrees Celsius. So today it had to be.

I checked the Shirakawago webcam at around 7am, and it showed a decent amount of snow falling, and the Shirakawago valley coated in white. With some minor convincing, Veronica agreed to make the almost 3 hour trek from Nagoya, and we were on our way. We left our bags downstairs with the hotel staff, and after bumbling around Nagoya station trying to find the right bus to get to Shirakawago, we found it, bought the tickets, and after a short wait we were on our way.

We grabbed the front seats of the bus, and along with the 4 other passengers who were seated further back, we settled in for the long journey North. Initial signs were worrying. In Nagoya at that time in the morning it was t-shirt weather. No clouds, warm sun an temperatures above 6 or 7 degrees (at 9 in the morning). It couldn't have looked less like snowing if we were in Hawaii. Still, we'd paid for our tickets, so we sat back and let Driver-San do his thing.

His "thing" was actually to drive between 20 and 30km/h over the speed limit. There is a fantastically smooth, wide, uncrowded completely divided 2 or 3 lane highway heading North out of Nagoya that we took, and it was signposted at a maximum of 80km/h. It was absolutely insane. Luckily for us, it seems that speed limits, like most of the other road rules in this country, like pedestrian crossings, "kept left unless overtaking" and "no parking" were completely optional. Our bus didn't stick to the speed limit, and quite a few times we were blown out of the water by a Mercedes, Nissan or humble Toyota doing 140km/h+.

Even when we got into the mountains North of Nagoya I was still sceptical as to whether we'd see snow. Even the lit up road signs were mocking me, displaying "rain" with little neon umbrellas displayed all the way up the highway as we gained altitude. Great. A 3 hour drive just to get wet. It was only when we got to the police blockade that we had a glimmer of hope. Police weren't letting normal cars through unless they had snow chains fitted. I considered that a pretty good sign that my luck was improving. Mr Policeman-San waved Mr Driver-San back onto the highway (buses must not need snow chains?) and we continued on our way.

No sooner had we re-entered the highway than the first patches of white began to appear by the roadside and in the surrounding trees at the side of the road. As it turns out, the first place that we saw snow was on the hills behind Takayama. This whole exercise would have been a lot quicker had it just snowed on Monday like I wanted it to.

After a few more pointless bus stops (with nobody getting on or off, and just Driver-San writing in his log book) we pulled off the highway and drove down the little road to Shirakawago. A UNESCO world heritage listed site, the village sat nestled in a valley with massive mountains, and a very un-traditional bus terminal right in the middle. Still, if it didn't have a bus terminal, or train station, or something, then I guess I wouldn't be writing about it now.

We all piled off the bus, and my first impression was the temperature. It wasn't all that cold. Takayama earlier in the week, and even late afternoon at Disneyland, was considerably colder. It seemed so to me anyway. Once we'd taken a few seconds to look around, the girls, who had never seen a snowflake in their lives with the exception of television, went nuts. Running from place to place grabbing snow off everything to feel, throw and eat, they were having a great time.

Veronica went inside the information booth to get some guide maps, while I stayed outside with the girls to supervise. Great job I did too. As only Angela could do, she single handedly started a massive snowball fight with some Japanese tourists. I imagine that this is roughly how World War 2 started.

While a Japanese lady was looking at Angela and talking to her in Japanese, as they often do, Angela was quietly collecting snow, and packing it into a snowball. Once a considerable snowball had formed, the lady foolishly held up both hands in a "don't shoot" pose, laughing and pretending to be afraid of the snowball. She shouldn't have pretended. Angela laughed, took a step back, and threw the snowball, straight at her head. As it whistled past her ear, missing by only inches, as both of my girls laughed hysterically, she gathered up a little bit of snow, and threw it at Angela playfully. This time both my girls went to find a huge pile of snow, chased her, threw it at her, and then it was on. My girls, and 4 or 5 other adults on each side, all throwing snow at each other. It made me wonder whether any of them would have ever let their hair down and do such a thing if it wasn't for the little 6 year old foreign girl who started it all.

With the snow skirmish completed, we decided to wander over the suspension bridge to the village on the other side of the river. One thing that surprised me at this stage was the lack of crowds. I was expecting, since this was the first decent snow day of the Japanese winter in Shirakawago, that there would be thousands of people here (similar to the crowds at Arashiyama at the start of the trip) but there just wasn't. I would estimate that there was less than 100 people there. So few people were there that you could walk through the little streets and rarely, if ever, see another person.

Up to this point, there was snow on the ground, but snow wasn't actually falling. I was a little disappointed by this, but at least the girls were able to see snow, so I wasn't devastated. As we crossed the suspension bridge across the river, as if on queue, the snow began to fall. I would not have planned it better.

We wandered through the village, and the snow got heavier and heavier, until it was falling quite heavily and we had to seek shelter for a short period of time till the worst of it passed.

One of the girl's main goals for the day was to build snowmen. I think they had envisaged life-sized snowmen like you see on American TV shows, but since we were a little pushed for time, they built mini snowmen, and left them sitting on a tree stump on one of the street corners at the back of the village.

After some more wandering through the village, it became evident that as pretty as it was, if it wasn't for the snow, it would be pretty boring. It is very small, and yes the traditional Gassho-zukuri houses are beautiful, but after we'd seen a few of them they started to get a little repetitive. I've read many travel recommendations that say that you really should spend a full day in Shirakawago, and stay overnight in one of the houses. A stay in the houses I can possibly understand, but after a full day in these villages I think I'd be bored senseless.

There were many ponds throughout the village, and I found a few things interesting. Firstly, there were 3 types of fish in them. Traditional large coy, as you would expect, but there were also smaller orange coy, like normal goldfish, and the most surprising (for me anyway) were the rainbow trout. Big, big rainbow trout, sitting in only 8 inches of water in ponds no bigger than a kiddie's backyard wading pool. With a net and some luck I could have caught a very tasty dinner. The other thing I noticed was that the trout and larger coy were still lively, and would move when you went near their pond. The goldfish however, appeared completely stunned. They would sit together in their hundreds, absolutely motionless, I assume conserving their energy and keep themselves from freezing. Even a rock thrown into the middle of the group didn't move any of them. None were floating upside down, so I assume they were alive?

Beside ourselves, and a few other small groups of tourists (all Japanese though) the other species of visitor around the village today was the photographer. Quite a few times we'd be walking along to find a photographer sitting inside a snow covered shrub half freezing to death while setting up a tripod trying to line up the perfect arty shot. It kept me amused anyway.

After wandering through the village, and pretty much seeing all that we wanted to see, we returned to the bus terminal to start investigating the timetable to leave. After a few hours of walking around in the snow, even Charlotte and Angela said they had seen enough. We booked our tickets home, and waited for the bus to arrive. That's when the blizzard hit. Very heavy snow began to fall, I assume similar to the snowfalls that happened last night to provide the initial snow covering. Charlotte and Veronica stayed huddled in the warm and dry shelter, while Angela and I went for one last lap of the village to soak up some time before the bus came.

It really started snowing heavily. I must admit I was cold, I was wet, and yet it was pretty damn cool. Angela and I wandered around for a little while longer, getting extra photos, until it came time to go back to the terminal to get the bus. By the time we got back, we got a few hot drinks to warm ourselves back up, and boarded the bus. The snow was so heavy at that stage, that I'm no longer sure it was just snow, and it may have also been raindrops. Whatever it was, it was no longer pleasant, so I was happy that we made the decision to come home when we did.

The bus took us to Takayama train station, and I didn't think I'd be seeing that place again this trip. Still, we got some lunch and waited outside the train station for our train. As we sat there, it began to snow. Very lightly, almost unnoticable, but still a pretty good farewell to Takayama. We boarded the train, which thankfully this time wasn't heated to 40 degrees and settled in for the long, frustrating, and boring journey down from the mountains to Nagoya.

We returned to our hotel, grabbed our bags, went back to the train station, and headed for Kobe, our home for the next 2 nights. After swapping to the subway at Kobe, we eventually found our hotel, and checked in after 9pm, at which time we still hadn't had dinner. We walked back towards the station, found a restaurant and grabbed some dinner, before returning to the hotel room a and falling into bed, all exhausted (with the exception of yours truly, who is still sitting here writing this blog entry). Bed time for me too though I think.