Japan: Old Town Takayama

We had a great rest stop in old town Takayama! The ryokan was gorgeous – highly recommended. The rest of our time here was spent doing some shopping and exploring more traditional Japanese architecture.

Some highlights included stumbling upon a soy sauce ‘brewery’ and sake tasting. I’ve never before thought I’d be able to tell the difference between soy sauces, but when you try one that’s been brewed for 3 years you can taste the difference. We tried a few different types and all left with our favorite! I love that traveling gives you an appreciation for things you wouldn’t otherwise give a second thought to.

Takayama also has some great mountainous scenery, so we spent an afternoon enjoying the town’s nice walking paths. Other than that, we shopped and looked at goods unique to this town: handmade craftwork and macha green tea.

Now we’re back on the bullet train to Hiroshima. We just turned around some chairs so we can sit in a little foursome and throw our bags on the empty seat, and it reminded me of a train we took somewhere in Thailand where our seats cost $1 and Shane got yelled at for doing just that (“one seat per ticket!” yelled the train conductor)… we joked that we should just throw down a 20 and buy the whole car. Haha – we definitely couldn’t do that here.