Day 4 - Kyoto: ginkakuji, philosopher's path, Gion's hanami-koji

it's a long way back to Kyoto from takayama given takayama'sa lil' out of the way location. we took nohi bus for kanazawa ~ 1hr 40mins. and from there, we took JR train to Kyoto in slightly under 2 hours. our train rolled into Kyoto at around 1+PM and we were welcomed by the warmer weather! Kyoto is definitely warmer as compared to both takayama and Osaka and we love it!

we took a cab to our accom - Kyoto's travellers inn which is around 20mins drive from JR Kyoto station. cab fare in japan is not as horrendous as some guidebooks make out, our short trip costs us around ~S$30. not cheap by SG standard but given we had 4 pax and heavy luggages, it was worth the fee too.

not wasting time, we checked in and were out of the accom in a jiffy. we decided to walk to our first sightseeing spot - ginkakuji temple. it's a good 5(?)km walk from where we were staying but given the good weather and the promise of some shrines + temples along the way, we thought it was not a bad idea. it took us almost an hour to reach the temple but we hardly feel the time.

tada! ginkakuji - a UNESCO site.

it boosts a really gorgeous garden.

the view from the top of the garden is breathtaking!

splashes of autumn colors make the place lovelier.after ginkaku, we took the philisopher's path next to it which is a scenic 30+mins stretch that leads one to nanzen-ji. we didn't make it to nanzen-ji as night falls rather early in fall so we took a cab to Gion area for dinner before exploring hanami-koji area there.

along philosopher's path

it's hard to take a decent photo of hanami-koji but you can google it to see how lovely the area is. it's similar to takayama old town with traditional houses housing restaurants, shops and teahouses where geisha and maiko supposedly entertain.

we settled for a late dinner along shijo-dori which is the main shopping stretch in Kyoto.

udon for dinner! yum!

AND, you guess it,  we took a cab back to our lodgings after that! we have been lazy and over-indulging with taxis today so we will try to do trains and buses tomorrow...

day 3 - takayama

for our last day in takayama, we continued exploring the rest of the town in leisure and at a slower pace for most of the late morning and afternoon. we even went back to our accom to laze the late afternoon away before venturing out for dinner. :P

breakfast at a local shop - the butter toast was good served with a cold (?) hard boiled egg and hot miso soup. and of cos, we ordered cakes as well. :D

left: lounging at the common area at K's house before moving out

right: we visited the morning market at takayama

we made our way to the morning market after breakfast which isn't too big but most of the stalls were selling the freshest produces. we bought really tasty and cheap kyoho grapes - these are ridiculously much cheaper there than those that we can get from cold storage. *thumbs up*

lunch!yummy curry rice which the elder boy finished the whole plate by himself! I'm impressed.

the younger boy and I are more of ramen person...

left: sarubobo - mascot for takayama and hida area! supposed to be baby monkey, looks like it?

desserts time! rice pancake but not much difference from the usual pancakes except they were softer and fluffier

lovely takayama!

to be fair, takayama is not exactly the most accessible place to go but given its proximity to shirakawa-go (which is an absolute must-go if you are around central japan) + the charm of its old town, it's worth every hassle of commuting for one to make his way to.

we will miss you, takayama! but we are ready to move out to our next destination - Kyoto! land of temples and shrines!

Day 2 Part 2 - Takayama Old town

From the bus station, it's only a 10-15 mins walk to Takayama old town. in fact, the whole of Takayama town is accessible by foot. :P
this area is absolutely stunning in architecture and some houses dated back to the edo era!

eating snacks non-stop along the way! ice cream, beef bun etc!

like thrown back in time!

we were only halfway done through the old town area when we stumbled upon takayama jinya which was a former government office. it is really huge inside which you cant really tell from its façade. we were turning here and there in it's many many rooms until we were almost lost if not for the "to route" signboards all over the place.

takayama jinya!

it's dinner time for us before calling a day! it has been a long day for the boys and we were glad that for the last day in takayama the next day, we can explore the rest of takayama in leisure and at a slower pace after a fully packed day 2!

Day 2 Part 1 - Shirakawa-go

Takayama is a common gateway to shirakawa-go, a famous UNESCO site. I've been there once 7 years ago and I've always wanted to bring the husband to visit it one day. it's too picturesque to be missed. everyone should really go visit it once in their lifetime.

from Takayama, it's ~ 50mins bus ride to shirakawa-go village. with our JR pass, we were able to use it to board the Nohi buses which will bring us there. 

waiting for our bus to come around 9AM. the boys chose their breakfast for the day - tuna mayo onigiri

we reached at ~ 10AM and had the most enjoyable day there before we took a bus back to takayama at ~ 3PM. LOVELY place!

top left: crossing deai-bashi bridge to the village!

bottom left: behind us is the drop-off point for tour buses

bottom right: we are in the village!

the boys easily entertained themselves with whatever we came across on. :P

we visited some of the gassho houses there which were converted to museums to have a look at the structure/layout inside and some of the stuff used by the older days folks

top left: yummy hida beef croquette!

top right: huge fishes are swimming in the water which is really clear!

bottom centre: YZ helped to take this photo for us. not too bad huh?

such a lovely day trip for us. by the time we were back at takayama, we still have the late afternoon +evening to explore the equally lovely old town. :)

Day 1 - Takayama

Finally, the ng family embarked on our annual nov family trip! after a hectic change in travel plans, we were ready to head out to central japan for a well deserved holidays for 1.5 weeks!

on Tuesday night, we fetched the boys from my mum's place, headed home, did some last minute packing, bathed and we were ready to head out to T3 for our 1AM flight!! not the most ideal timing as I rarely can sleep a wink on board but the thankfully the boys were asleep for almost all of the 6.5hrs flight.

the husband was pleased to see the star wars display and thanks to mummy who stocked up abit on skincare, we were able to get the boys a stormtrooper soft toy (boba fett was actually the elder boy and my first choice - we gave in to the whines of YR as usual...)

a rather smooth flight and we landed safely at Osaka KIX airport at around 8.30AM Osaka time. first hiccup: I didn't expect the custom clearing will be so SLOW at Osaka airport. I was imagining the same efficiency as SG airport. thought wrong. @_@ I'm really convinced now that we have one of the best world class airport back at home. imagine my horror when we only exited the arrival gate close to an hour later! the reason for my horror was stemming from the planned plan that I had to change 3 trains to reach our destination for the first day - Takayama.

and if we were late for the 1st train, it will have flow on downstream impact on the timing of connecting trains. which meant we ran a really high risk to reach takayama at like 7PM or so in the evening! what a waste of time. and my mind was churning trying to decipher the next step which was actually trying to exchange for our JR rail pass at the ticket station located at I-don't-know-where in the airport. it was an OMG moment.

first things first, always. so I took a deep breath, located the ticket station, asked the boys to stay put while I went to exchange the rail pass. with the kind help of the lady who exchanged our rail passes, we sort of work out a sequence which seems to work and will bring us to takayama by 2+PM. the only risk were the connecting time between the 3 trains were 13 and 5 mins each. I think I asked her like thrice "is this doable?". and she was convincing enough for me to buy the train tickets through her on the spot cos there's simply no time to purchase the tickets at the destination stations given the limited connecting time.

all I can say now is thanks to sheer luck, timely help from friendly locals and a lot (really a lot) of running with our luggages, we made all the connecting trains and rolled into Takayama in style. ok maybe not so stylish, it was drizzling when we reached and we braved the cold and wetness to check into our accom. :P

top left: hubbi took this pic when I was madly planning with the JTB staff

centre: excited at taking trains! I wonder if they still feel this way by the time we were on board the 3rd train (and somewhere into our 3rd hour on a moving train.. ha)

For those interested, this was our route:
1) we took airport express train to bring us from Osaka KIX airport to SHIN Osaka station where all the shinkansens (bullet trains) are - ~50mins
2) From Shin-Osaka, we took shinkansen (weeeee.....!) to Nagoya - ~ slightly below an hour despite the distance!
3) From Nagoya, we took Hida train to Takayama - a really scenic train journey given the wide windows set up for this train and the route leading to the hida areas is really gorgeous. this took us another 2 hours+.

So at 2+PM, we finally alighted at Takayama! our hangout for the next 3 days! our last min. accom booked here is K's house takayama. it's alike to hostel/dormitory where there's common area for guests to interact, common kitchen etc. we booked a room with private bathroom to ourselves. the best thing about this place is it's location - barely 5mins walk from the train station. and the staff were really helpful the whole time we were there, helping us to plan logistics, itinerary and recommendations for eating places. remember, the itinerary for this trip was very roughly sketched out by me. :P

our tiny room, literally no space to walk around much when both luggages were opened..

but it's cosy and functional enough for us given we were normally out the whole day and we were really good in the sense that we were all fast asleep by 9+PM like that. :P

\

the only thing that I really had a hard time getting used to for this trip was setting up our own beds! I know I sounded really spoilt but spreading out bedsheets and putting pillows in pillow cases are such a dread! as you can see in the photo above, the beds were obviously not made yet. I obviously think it's more important to hit the streets soon after check-in rather than making the beds. HA!

for the rest of the day, we explored parts of takayama (other than the old streets) and stumbled upon a quaint town with really minimal human traffic. lots of nice cafes and restaurants scattered around the main streets. :D it was a relaxing way to spend the rest of our first day given the hectic transit in the first half of the day!

top 2 photos, we had tea break at this café called soeur. the food was really good and the boys ordered 2nd helpings of their sandwiches on top of the desserts that we already had.

bottom left: pretty bakery shop called blue penguin bakers

bottom right: 1/3 of our hearty dinner? I think both the husband and myself gained weight this trip. is anyone surprised? I don't think so.

ending the post for the first day of our trip with a shot of a typical takayama street.

it rained in the afternoon, so the night was damn cold. the boys were equipped (albeit too adequately perhaps) for that so it's all good.

change of travel plans - hassle or exciting depending on your persepective

so for those who know, the ng family has been planning for a france+london trip for the last 2 weeks of this month for the longest time. so when we woke up last Saturday morning to the dreadful events in Paris, the husband and I were stunned beyond words. so much emotions and thoughts surging through our minds. we felt deep sadness for paris. we felt unsure if we should continue with our trip just 5 days from the attacks while state of emergency was declared for paris. we felt relief and gratitude that this could have happened 1 week later when we are there but didn't. we were thinking of all the sunken costs like air tickets, hotel accomodations, rail tixs etc and totally at a loss on what will happen to these if we decided to cancel the trip.

but being the ever pragmatic + optimist me, I know the best way to alleviate anxiety and worries is through action itself! so we sprang into action!
long story short, we called up SQ and in light of what happened, they were able to grant full refund on a case by case basis (we got it given our planned departure date is so close). so with that, we decided to cancel our Europe trip! and while there were more work to be done to follow up on all the other expenses paid upfront, we didn't want to waste our leave and deny ourselves of a year-end family holiday. it's a good thing that I'm always planning travel trips now and then even when there's nothing concrete. :P so I said to hubbi, given the timeline, Australia or japan will make the most sense. he decided japan and we were set!

both of us stayed up late on sat night to do the admin work while the boys slept blissfully unaware of all the changes. between us, we called up the various hotels, railway agencies etc to enquire on refunds/potential cancellation. we managed to cancel 1 hotel out of the 3 hotels booked for the trip. we were unable to cancel paris + London ones given those are non-cancellable reservations.... last time I always wonder why would anyone pay extra to book those cancellable accommodations. now I know... LOL well, I may start doing the same going forward given this experience. :P
able to get refunds back for TGV trains but the process is a bit of a hassle but not impossible. Eurostar is a gone case though. the good thing is we bought travel insurance and the insurance asked us to submit the supporting documents for their review. at least it's not a dead end yet for the 2 accoms + Eurostar! :P
in any case, we are fully prepared to forfeit all these when we decided to cancel the trip. weighing the pros and cons (safety!), hubbi and I are absolutely on the same side that we can always earn back the monies but putting our lives at risk unnecessarily should be avoided.

the review for travel insurance will have to wait after our trip though as yes! we are heading to central japan after all!
I was staying up late on sat night and using the full sunday to plan for a trip which we are departing tomorrow night! how exciting! LOL. this is really testing my adaptability skills to the max. and I think I pass with flying colors.
and it's really an experience trying to book accommodations this last minute. it was so stressful till at the end, I found everything funny and interesting. it's really surreal seeing message popped up at booking.com saying no rooms available for your travel dates. and no matter how you permutated the different cities, the same message appears. well done!

everything happens for a reason, I believe. and due to the last minute bookings, the kids (+us) will get to try new accommodations type for the first time!
we will be staying at a guesthouse (similar to a hostel - not new for the adults but 1st time with the kids), a jap style hotel (the kids can try sleeping on the futons for the first time) and airbnb (1st time for everyone!). I used to have reservations for airbnb hearing horror stories now and then but where else to try it than japan! our host seems like a very pleasant lady with good reviews on the website for her. so hopefully, it will be a good experience for us!

we got the air tickets + accoms booked on sat, rail pass bought yesterday and 3/4 of the itinerary (roughly) sketched out by me. we will be flying off tomorrow night and I think it will be interesting to see how this last min trip pan out! :D