We all slept in a little too long today. So much so that we were awoken by Veronica saying "Everyone get up. It's 10-to-8 and they stop serving breakfast at 8 o-clock!". Super.
With bleary eyes and messy hair we made our way down to the dining room to see what breakfast weirdness awaited us. It turned out to be a lot better than I was expecting.

Breakfast was a mix of both familiar and unfamiliar foods, most of which wasn't bad. Stuff like ham, pasta salad and garden salad is still a little weird at breakfast, but we're slowly getting used to it. Stuff like pickled mystery foods, and a mummified ball of something-or-other, not so much.

After breakfast, we mentioned to the owner that we were going to spend the morning at Hida No Sato (Hida folk village), and he very kindly offered to drive us in his car. The guy (who I think is the owner of the place) does go out of his way to make your stay memorable. Hida No Sato is a small, traditional but somewhat touristy park containing traditional houses, structures and streets from the Hida region. The houses are all actual family dwellings from different parts of the region all relocated, in-tact, and preserved, in their current site in the village. It was very touristy, but it was an interesting look into Japanese life as far back as the 1500's.

The overwhelming aspect of the trip this morning was that it was cold. Bitterly cold. I lost count of the number of times I said "I don't know how it isn't snowing". Icicles several inches long hung from the eaves of some of the houses in the village, and at 10am it was obvious that we were the only idiot tourists in the city, because we had the whole village to ourselves. As we went from place to place, the girls collected stamps and answered trivia questions about significant aspects of each one of the houses, with the end goal of getting a prize as the end if all answers were correct. All were sceptical about the "prize" after the Fuji TV scam a week ago. But still we pressed on.

Firstly through the gate, the girls were enthralled by feeding the massive and ugly looking carp, and a single white obviously well fed swan the size of a small car, which I dubbed Swanzilla. That kept the girls amused for a little while, until their parents began to freeze and lose feeling in their limbs, at which time we decided to move on.

At the top of the park, the fog cleared in the distance just long enough to give some breathtaking views of the surrounding snow covered mountains in the distance. They were absolutely beautiful, and they looked as cold as we felt.

All in all the park was nice, but a little too touristy. I guess I expected it to be, and it was good to visit once, but now I've seen it I wouldn't want to see it again.

We made our way out of the gate, and the girls got all correct answers on their quiz, so they were given a wooden plaque with something burned into it, which they liked marginally more than the stupid Fuji TV clips. We're unsure whether we'll get it back through customs though.
Catching the bus, we ended up down at the train station. We began a slow walk back through the streets of Takayama, over the river, through the preserved "traditional house" streets. Which were very picturesque, and quite uncrowded, but they are exactly the same as last time we were here, so they weren't much of a novelty this time. Plus it was too cold to slow down, so we kept walking.

It may sound pretty stupid, but I'd read lots of reviews about a "hole in the wall" burger place called Centre4 Hamburgers in Takayama, that I really wanted to try (http://tiger-center4.com/). Since we were walking through Takayama at around lunchtime, we decided to give it a go.

First impressions, I'll admit, weren't positive. The restaurant is almost literally a hole in the wall. It is a small doorway, then into a cluttered hallway between other shops, then through another few doorways, and into a messy, dingy looking restaurant. I think the clutter was supposed to appear kind of like Americana memorabilia, but empty beer bottles and other miscellaneous junk isn't kitsch. It's just junk. At midday we were also the only ones in the restaurant, which is never a good sign. Still we decided to throw caution to the wind and give it a go.

Not cheap burgers, but with the exception of home-made hamburgers, the food that this little place served was by far the best hamburger I've ever had. Ever. And that's a big claim. Once off the grill (only metres away from our table) the burgers were placed in front of us almost immediately, and so hot, fresh and juicy. These guys deserve their outstanding reviews, even if their restaurant looks like a hobos living room. I can forgive them. Apparently they are looking to open a 2nd restaurant in New York. If they do things the same way over there, I'm sure they will make a killing. We bid them farewell, and the lady running the restaurant gave the girls some candy hamburgers on sticks. A nice gesture. If you visit Takayama, visit the traditional streets, temples and sake breweries if you must, but do not miss going to this hamburger place. You can thank me later.

Back to the room, we rested for the afternoon, before going down for an onsen bath. Again, I confirmed my dislike for these insanely hot baths. Yesterday was hot and a novelty. Today there was no novelty, and it was just hot.

After baths, and recovery time, it was time for dinner. Tonight's offering was much better than last night. A massive offering of fish, pickles, sashimi (that I again cooked in my simmering cauldron), BBQ meatballs, egg, potatoes, eggplant, beef, mushroom and vegetable in a caudron with simmering stock, 2 x pork schnitzel pieces with salad and potato salad, rice and fruit. A massively ridiculous amount of food. The fact that all of that is included in the nightly cost of the room, as well as breakfast, makes this ryokan very good value. As a bonus tonight I had a voucher for drinks, so the girls had cokes, while Veronica and I were given sake. I was expecting a small cup of sake to taste, but instead they gave us a bottomless freaking flaggon. Each. After about 8 shots each of sake, we were both sick of it, so we reluctantly left the remaining shots. Still not sure why anyone would drink the stuff by choice. Veronica described it as like drinking warm nail polish remover.

After dinner, Veronica and Angela went to try out the massage chairs, while Charlotte and I, for some reason, decided to go for a walk. In the dark. And the rain. It turned out that at 7:30pm at night, in the rain, the temperature was actually a lot warmer than it was during the day today. We got some drinks to take back to the room from the local Family Mart (convenience store) and headed back.

We don't have a refrigerator in our room, so our drinks are currently sitting outside of our room on the terrace to chill, ready for the morning. The weather report says that we're expecting -2 degrees overnight, with light rain and/or possible snow flurries (whatever they are) in the morning, so our drinks should be nicely chilled for the train ride to Nagoya tomorrow.