Chubusangaku National Park and Takayama

We got off to a good start but slowed down when we had to make several stops trying to find post offices that were open so we could get more yen.  After yesterday's trip to the lacquer gallery everyone was cash poor. The post office is the quickest, most reliable way to get money. Banks can take up to two hours and 7/11s often won't take our debit cards. Then we had to make extra stops for a bathroom break. Ted was getting frustrated because he had a surprise stop for us that we wouldn't be able to do if there were too many delays.  

The route through the mountains is spectacular.  Most of the way the leaves were at their peak. The road went through tunnels built after the war that are engineering and construction marvels. There must have been 50 of them, some seemingly endless, one that split off in two directions and another that was sloped and serpentine.  We took a detour to the Chubusangaku National Park up near Mount Hotaka. It was high and the leaves had fallen but the mountains and the hiking trails felt like home.  Ted said he had hiked the ridges from hut to hut for a week, we made do walking along the river for an hour.  The best surprise were the small, fast little monkeys. I wished we could have stayed longer. 

We arrived in Takayama in time for a tour of the original Magistrates House used by the ruler of the town. The weather was overcast and while we were there heavy rain was coming down.  The house was built around a beautiful garden and the wet intensified the colours and rained down the maple leaves. Afterwards there was a saki tasting and we had time to explore on our own.  Takayama means high in the mountains and is a post town. There are two folk art museums that would have been better if I knew the purpose of most of the things I was looking at,  Near the end the rain let up and it was easier to take street photo's. We are staying at the Best Western, which is a fine but it doesn't feel like Japan, however we had our best meal so far. It was genuinely Japanese. We cooked our meat with a miso sauce on a horse chestnut leaf over individual fires. It was a fun way to cook and delicious. 

On a side note Japan is on a tourist boom, they expected 14 million this year and it is already 20 million.  They are gearing up for many more in the next few years but are really not ready for such rapid expansion.  By far the most common tourists are other Asians, particularly Chinese. 

 The Magistrate's House

Takayama

Now for something different