well today is the fifth day in Japan! so this is the first day in Takayama.... never been there before, this is my first time! well gotta say the morning wasnt that good for us.

weather, rainy :-(

ok lets see first up, i took pictures of the view from my hotel room windows, last night was in the dark so today is the morning one!! anyway here are the pics...



Even though it was raining, we braved the winds and storms to the morning market! the going was tough....but we made it....actually the weather was just cold and the winds only aggravated the freezing weather.

oo this pic was taken when i was walking to the morning market over the bridge. if i look straight along the bridge, i would be able to see the morning market!

hmm the morning market was S.M.A.L.L i think it is also because of the rain and i noticed the stuffs that they sold were mainly fruits, vegetables, more of the daily neccesities. so its more for us to look more than to buy.


after looking around for a while, got bored and hungry, so i went to look for food! took some pictures as i walked as usual. walked and walked like crazy but couldn't find any udon store at all! at last, we backtracked and asked shop owners and finally found an udon shop and its economical too!



oo this is the udon shop, think its like the only one that is near to our area, plus i couldnt find any at all around the area, most of the eateries served bread or rice. anyway they serve Hida beef here, its their famous beef and it tastes gooood.... practically every single store sells the Hida beef! its da best beef on Earth!

lol see the one carrying the orange umbrella? thats my mum in her famous pose. :D

inside the shop, the people were soo friendly! geez i never had such good service before! the place is empty and its no ifferent from a home, so you feel so comfortable! although it has many tables and chairs, the small TV really fits into the place so neatly till it looks like a house!

this is what i ordered! their renowned Hida beef, with my favourite udon! seriously their udon is so thick and chewy in such a way that when you chew it off it comes off nicely with a neat tear instead of the ones where we eat in Singapore, when you bite it, they come off into rips.

check this out! the UDON..... wow they are super thick yet chewy! see the size of the udon? now compare it with the chopsticks. the udon is actually so much thicker than the chopsticks! i was like wow..... oh yeah the udon is handmade too!

*drooling....
heres the famous Hida beef, a must try when you go to Japan! after i ate this, i kept on eating Hida beef all the way till the day i left Takayama!

ok you must be wondering what's the problem with me for taking such a picture. hmm.... oh yeah. that umbrella is the umbrella that practically every Japanese use! serious! lots of people are always seen using this umbrella, its like school uniform! super cool!

hmm took more pictures on the way to the Hida Folk village, its a mock village that is a smaller version of the mountain village that we will be going to, Shrakawa-go, which is also under the UNESCO protection....




hehe welcome to toilet time! took a photo as the toilet looks so modern even though it is located in a lonely place. the inside of the toilet is soo clean! you won't believe it man! remeber, its a public toilet!

see? its the men's toilet for goodness sake, i dont and cant go into the women's toilet, 'duh'.

hmm that styrofoam cup is only as big as my hand? it was even smaller....but that was my lunch. really pathetic instant noodles. bleh x.x


ok we took a bus to the Hida Folk Village as the distance was too far away, the bus ride was slightly long, like 20 to 30 mins? oh yeah some of the photos are shaky as the ground was uneven and i was walking while taking pictures, so you know.

this is the outside of the Hida Folk Village, here, you still cant see the village.

okay this is the inside, its so much colder than where we previously were, as in where we boarded the bus.

oh cool....there were pecimens growing on the trees! the pecimen are different as they are really hard and crunchy, something like an apple just that it is easier to bite off a chunk. its like a biscuit?
got no idea where this leads to. O.o just took a picture.


this bell is huge? O.o believe it or not it is a bell that is supposed to bring good luck when you whack it. the thing is that if you whack the bell wouldnt it give away the place where you are to the enemies?? as in during the tribal times....


no idea what is this house for? i remeber every house has a use as in some was for the making of sleds, some for wood chopping blah blah.


just took this at random.

was like breathing out? and since its cold then you can see like 'steam' coming out from your mouth and nose?? after breathing out through my mouth, look what happened to the umbrella....water droplets formed. -_-""

look at the nicely done up firepit! although its small, its hot!


see the temperature? its at.... 3 degrees... o.o

random shot....

don't you think the pond looks real nice? oo see the 2 white spots at the far end of the pond? those are swans! super cool man! this place is so empty and so much colder! reminds me of my freezer back at home!

uh lets see...took this photo just before i exited the place? should have taken picture of it at first before entering, then i know how to walk instead of blindly walking?

nice huh, was on the bus when i saw this house! its like so green..... so well maintained.

same supermarket, same stuffs, bought the same food too.

after this, i went back to the hotel, had instant noodles back at the hotel before having a good bath then station myself in front of the Tv, watched those kinda funny TV show, had a good time laughing before heading to bed!

Labels: 21 days, fifth day, folk village, Holiday 2008, Japan, supermarket, takayama

Today is the last day of our first leg in Tokyo! next stop, Takayama! lets see....its a rather 'ulu' place, very empty just like a dead town as it is in the outskirts! mum told us to expect something really old and traditional. since today was also the last day in hotel Metropolitan, we decided to try out the western food!

oh yeah its sunny today as usual.

haiz blogger again same problem. there is alot more food in the western dining area, at least 2 times more! but the food is all western....i feel that the food was very commercialised so i just took some food to eat and thats all. the food wasn't that excellent or what, just normal.

hehe this is not sausage, its cheese! i loved the cheese!

after eating and checking out, we took a train to the Shinkansen Line, the rapid express train that would bring us to different cities i remeber we had to go to some train station and change trains later on.....

unfortunately, we were stuck in the morning working crowd, look at how squished up we were with the people in the train! imagine us with the bulky luggage, it was very troublesome for us.


this is the Shinkansen Station! eh? no. thats the train station, from there all we had to dowas walk over to another gate to change train stations.

took some pics of the train station platform!

train's not here yet! time to take more pictures!


oo this is our train! its no difference from a bullet train, after all its supposed to take us from city to city!

oo see those in pink>? they are the train cleaners. took a video of them cleaning super fast and changing the chairs the other way round as the train had to go backwards. but apparently i lost the video.... T.T


took many pictures on board the shinkansen, these are some of them!


I also noticed that it has started to become farmlands after farmlands, no more buildings left already.

After a super long ride like 2hours, we finally reached the train station that we are supposed to alight to change train, the train was soo different. i mean like duh, changing from a rapid express train to a conventional train is a big difference, plus its a train that circulates around the lonely places, so yeah its gonna be old?

thats our train! once in the train, we took out our lunch to eat! we didnt buy any bento sets or whatsoever, so we just took snacks! first up, peanut butter bread! my aunt reccomended this, she says its good....

hehehe look at the peanut butter bread! so nicely packed! wondering how much peanut butter is inside!

waaa! so much! X.X the peanut butter can practically splurt out when you squeeze the middle! best peanut butter bread ever!

this is onigiri! its a japanese rice 'ball' just that it is in traingular shape! doesnt taste that fantastic, it only tastes normal?

anyway i took more pics on the train, enjoy! :D








oo this is the Hokkaido bun! uh that starange shape in the middle is the picture of Hokkaido? like the outline of the entire place..... its actually cheese bread and the rbead is more of the cake type, just that it is fluffy! its just cheese flavoured, which means there is no slices of cheese in it.

ok back to the more photos taken during the long train ride.





oh yeah...as the train got further and as it reaches train stations, it gets shorter and shorter as different trains split up to different places.



Finally again! reached Takayama! should have seen bro's face man! he was so depressed. he was like is the hotel going to have a TV?

this photo was taken just outside the train station!

cool! they have directions on the floor for you!

there's more! just that i couldnt bother to take every single one of them at each junction.

walked for approximately 15 mins before we reacehd the hotel.

took some pics just as i walked down the never ending road.....


bro wanted to try lkeading, so we passed him the map. he was like "where are we?" and later on "oh! here!" then he led us all the way to some place.

as i walked, i took more pictures!



oo this is where we reached our hotel!

just so happen, we met the hotel staff and he helped us to carry the baggage up the hill!

this is like the lobby, just that they do not have a lift, the hotel is just 2 storeies high and they have shared bathrooms, which meant in our room, there is no toilet. trying it out for the first time and the other hotels will be more or less the same.


this photo is taken just outside the hotel room! its more of a house, so its quite tiny, makes you feel at home! hehe there was no one else but us!

our hotel room has 2 windows as it is the corner room!

this is the view from the first window......

...and the second!

PS thats the toilet in case you dont know....bathroom is on first floor.

ok we left the hotel as we wanted tio explore more of Takayama, just before it turns pitch dark!

thats the front door of the hotel! the people here are soo friendly!!

i didnt know even though this town has only old people and kindergarden children, they actually have a modernised street? so unusual from the quiet lanes and dark roads.

we decided to walk around the area as it looks so much brighter so we expected that road to be more lively? apparently it was just as dead. walked into the supermarket and got some food! its so much colder here compared to tokyo!


eating....oops cant see the food!

uh... so little food left....more food!! more food!!


thats prawn, fried prawn. gee the prawns here are huge..... >.<

thats fish! fried fish...its one huge fish! not that huge


on the way back, too pictures of the scenery close to the river! wow i was freezing all thanks to the wind!

hmm returned back to hotel and can you believe it? dad actually opened up more instant noodles! he said those food earlier on was tea break! T.T

well the rest of the night was spent watching TV (luckily the hotel has a TV) and mum used her laptop to backup pictures! Played my PSP, backed up my photos, watched funny japanese shows and soon, it was goodnight!

Labels: 21 days, fourth day, Holiday 2008, hotel metropolitan, Japan, supermarket, takayama, Tokyo