nara deer park

On our last day we decided to jump on the train to Nara, to have a look at the deer park. It ended up being the perfect day relaxing in the park, laughing at the Japanese girls squealing when the deer chase them for biscuits.











We also stumbled upon the Nara food festival, again some good food to taste...

kyoto

We spent the last few days of our holiday in Kyoto, and compared to the rest of the holiday Kyoto is a chaotic tourist trap city. We visited a few tourist spots but then decided that we'd had enough of the crowds, and spent the rest of the time wondering around the food markets and the city, shopping and just taking everything in.

One spot definitely worth visiting is the Sanjūsangen-dō temple with the thousand statues, it's beautiful and probably more pleasant to visit because you're not allowed to take photos...





Being an orienteer, and lovings forests, seeing the bamboo forest was something that I've always wanted to do. Pitty it is much smaller than I expected, and that one can not walk around inside the forest.







This is one of the best things we had on our trip, it's a crab stick with camembert in the middle.



And the black sesame flavor ice cream was my favorite. We also tried wasabe flavor and green tea flavor.

gujo hachiman

We spent a relaxing few days in the small town of Gujo Hachiman. This is probably the highlight of the trip so far... The town is small enough to explore and walk in a day, but there is enough to keep you here for a week. There aren't many tourists here, and not many people speak english, but there are a few nice restaurants, some interesting convenience stores, and many small quiet corners with beautiful views where one can rest and relax.

Fun fact: Gujo Hachiman produces 80% of the plastic fake replica food used by Japanese restaurants in their display windows, to advertise what their food looks like. There are a few stores in town that sell the stuff, and you can even attend a class on how to make your own.

 

 

 

 

Lots of water and rivers in this town, and in some streets they have huge koi swimming in the the "gutters".

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And some beautiful temple gardens at Jionzenji.

 

 

hirayu

We've spent the last few days in a small onsen town called Hirayu in the Japanese alps. It's beautiful here, steep high mountains covered with autumn colors from the trees. There is water everywhere, you can hear it flowing next to the streets, see it in the rivers, and you can see the steam and smell the sulfur from all the hot water springs everywhere. They have these small hot water fountains in front of most of the hotels, and public hot water foot baths all over the place. We've also used our hotels public and private open air hot water baths (onsen) a few times. There's nothing more awkward than getting naked with a couple of strangers in a pool, but you get used to it after a while. ;-)

 

 

 

 

We also did some short walks in the forest.

 

 

 

 

Thick layers of moss everywhere.

 

One of the many warm spring water public foot baths scattered around town.

 

Eggs being boiled outside a shop in a natural warm water spring.

 

 

We went up the Shinhotaka ropeway on one of the days, but it was too misty at the top to see anything.

 

 

 

takayama old town

Takayama old town is filled with small (probably tourist) shops, and lots of people. But it is very interesting and there are some beautiful things to see.