I left early this morning, as I had to drop the rental car off before 12. I looked it up and the Lincoln Tunnel is 2.4 kilometers and the Holland Tunnel is 2.6. This time I paid attention to the length of the tunnels. They were posting the length in meters, or for larger tunnels, in kilometers. The longest tunnel was 11 kilometers. As I drove through, I noticed that on the tunnel walls, they have indicators of how many kilometers are left, and how many were in the opposite direction. That way, people going in both directions had an idea of how much was left. I have no problem driving at night, even though some people get drowsy and bored of the monotony. These tunnels had that effect on me. It was so much the same, that it was hard to keep concentration and focus on the driving.
I arrived at the hotel at 11:15. In Taiwan, they were semi strict with check in times being at 3. Though, in Taipei, they told us at 2:15 that the room was ready. I have a feeling Japan is even more strict. So, I headed into town. I went down what looked like the main street. There were a lot of snack places and souvenir shops. The souvenir shops looked super touristy, after looking in a handful.
I decided to do three small museums. The first was the Takayama Museum of History and Art, or as they call it on google, the Takayama Town Museum. It had 14 rooms of varying levels of interest to me regarding the town. Here are some samples of what I found.
The next museum was an odd one. It was called The Showa-kan Museum. It dealt with objects and displays that have to do with Japan from 1926-1989. I was not familiar with most things, but it was still a cute museum to look at.
The last museum was the Yatai Kaikan, which was a big disappointment. It is billed as a museum about parade floats. It got good reviews. It was a room with about four or five floats. That was it... They charged $10 for it. What a ripoff!
From there, I started a "walking course" that is advertised everywhere in town, that takes you along a two hour route that passes by about 15 or so temples. On one hand, the signs were very, very good at directing where to go next. On the other hand, every single temple was closed, at 1:30 PM, except for one, which was empty but had the doors open. Most of the buildings looked about the same. It ended by going through a park that was on a hill above the city. There used to be a castle there, but it does not exist anymore. It was good exercise though!
Once I was back in town, I had lunch. The tour planner's booklet mentioned restaurants in the area. Unfortunately, the English translations did not match up with anything on google maps. I decided I wanted to try Udon noodles, which is popular in Japan. Udon noodles are buckwheat noodles. Sometimes it is cold, with sauce on the side. Other times it is hot, in a soup. I found a local restaurant, down a side road from the main souvenir street. I spent about five to ten minutes translating the two paged menu outside the restaurant, looking for something that I'd like. When I walked inside, I found that the menu was much larger and not only were the dishes all in English, but they listed all the ingredients in English too! I ordered a mushroom and vegetable hot soup. It was good.
I finally went back to the hotel and took a long rest in the room. Near the end of the walk, it started pouring. Luckily, a lot of the town's buildings had awnings to protect from the rain.I was aware of an "old town" section of Takayama, but I had been close enough to the edges that I thought there wasn't much to see. On a hunch, I googled Takayama crafts, and from the searches, was guided to a section of town near and in the old town, down streets I had yet to go to. I grabbed my umbrella and went back into the town.
I was able to see a few cute craft stores that were just closing up and quite a lot were already closed. Nonetheless, I walked for a while and saw some beautiful old streets.
Tomorrow, I plan to look at some shops in the morning. Then, I take a 2 hour bus(that apparently only leaves every 2 hours), stop in a city just to see one castle, and then take a train to a tiny village along the Nakasendo Trail, which originally linked Kyoto with Tokyo during Japan's feudal period. Along the road were small villages known as "post towns," where people travelling could rest.
Edit: I have one more thought that I'd like to add. People in Japan bow. A lot! Hotel workers, waiters, shop workers, people driving cars, and even people riding on bikes. It really makes you feel like you are in a society where people actually care about one another and have deep respect for each other. It makes me more conscious of my actions, more patient with people, and more likely to do acts of kindness throughout the day. It really is lovely.
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