On Monday, the 22nd, my wife and I hit the road to Gifu. Or destination was Takayama, a city rich in history and dango fried mochi balls. We had a good time just walking around looking for temples we could see all around. The streets near the mountains were basically quiet and it was funny because we only saw foreigners going to those more distant temples, all the the regular tourists stuck to the main streets looking at the shops. There were a lot of people in the old part of town as this was a holiday for many people. Bus tours followed women with flags and I heard a jinriksha pull man explaining all of the different shops to a couple of Asians tourists in English. We wanted to get off the streets and ended up in a very cool place, Bagpipe Cafe, founded in 1981. The atmosphere was nice and so was the coffee. We never got a chance to try Takayama ramen, instead settling for soba and tempura in a local shop. Overall it was a nice change of pace. The town reminded me a lot of both Gujo Hatchiman and Nagahama with its dark wood buildings lining the streets, containing the same mixture of fancy shops and antique sellers.
As my wife mentioned in the last blog, we rode up the Tedori Canyon Road cycling path on the 23rd, a fun time and always good to get out and see the countryside.
No comments:
Post a Comment