The hot springs bath on the top floor of our ryokan (Japanese inn) opens at 0500 so yesterday morning at 0505 I went up for the first soak of the day.
I was by myself in the open air pool watching the darkness give way to morning. The hills were still dark and I felt moved to compose a poem in my limited Japanese.
Mata kesa mo
Kurai yama ue
Samishi-soo
Again this morning,
The dark mountain tops
Look lonely.
After watching night turn to day while soaking in the hot spring water, I felt ready to enjoy a day of sightseeing.
Most of our group caught the bus to Shirakawa-go to tour the world heritage site. Ikuko and I were there last year (see the post dated Oct 24, 2018 in this blog) so we decided to take it easy today and wander around Takayama old town.
As we left our ryokan, this view gave us a good start for the day.
Before long we found one of the streets with old homes and businesses.
Quite often the owners cultivated flowers and other greenery. Some were planted in what little earth that was exposed, others were in pots.
We passed three different groups of scouts passing out red feathers in return for donations. These boys were happy to pose for me.
This shop specialized in osembe (Japanese rice crackers) made fresh on site. I'm sure many of the packages of osembe were produced in a commercial facility, but this guy kept up with demand as people came in to buy freshly made crackers.
The famous Takayama morning market runs along the bank of this river. There were no nets or other restrictions to keep these koi in their home part of the river so I figured they must enjoy regular feedings to keep them home.
The morning market is housed in the white tents along a small street on the Miyagawa river bank.
This is a scene typical of older construction along river banks in many Japanese towns. The banks are built up of shaped stones, the guardrails are made of reinforced concrete posts with steel pipe rails and there are various plantings to improve the looks of the bare concrete and stone.
We found this old-style house along another street in the preserved old town.
After enjoying the sights most of the day, we went back to our ryokan for another soak and then went back toward the old town for dinner.
We happened upon a small udon restaurant on a small side street. It turned out to be a good choice for they had a special meal consisting of udon (the Japanese larger soft white noodles) in hot water with a special dipping sauce and a side dish of tempura. Both the noodles and the tempura were excellent.
After that satisfying meal, we walked back toward our inn.
Earlier in the day I'd noticed translucent squares of glass spaced among the pavers near street corners. I wondered about them and my curiosity was satisfied when it turned dark and we saw the lights in action. It seems to be another safety feature along with the yellow pavers helping the vision impaired.
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