Nagoya Travel Jan 2019- Day 3: Takayama, Soba Hida

The next day, we had meant to take the bus from Nagoya to Takayama at the Meitetsu bus station. Unfortunately, the bus seats were already fully booked for the timing we wanted. In order to make it to Takayama in time for our Shirakawago trip, we rushed to the train station next to Meitetsu bus station to take the 10:48 a.m. limited express train which cost us double the price at ¥5140 per pax.

Somehow it slipped our mind to book the bus tickets on the day we arrived in Nagoya cos I had read about this problem prior the trip. /facepalms/

We were confused with the train seating and thank God, we met a Singaporean who told us which cabin to go.

It’s a comfortable 2 hours plus trip~

It’s pretty amazing cos we saw the idyllic scenery change as we passed by~

We reached around 115pm~

Exiting the station…

There’s an area map of Takayama next to the tourist information centre. We went in briefly to get some pamphlets and asked for general directions.

The train station~

Spa Hotel Alpina is only a short 5 mins walk away~

Hotel lobby~

There’s free-to-use computers~

Free coffee and magazines for browsing~

As it’s not our check-in time yet, we headed for lunch~

Browsing through the pamphlet we got at the tourist information centre, we decided on Soba Hida.

It’s just a very short walk from our hotel and rather easy to miss if you’re not careful.

Very quaint interior~

We ordered the featured tempura soba dish which is ¥1100 & K went for the cold soba noodles at ¥850.

I’m so glad we tried it cos the taste is slightly different from the soba noodles I’ve eaten before. And I think they literally fried a flower? I have no idea what it was but it tasted a bit like zucchini.

This was the free dessert when we presented the voucher to the staff. It tasted sweet, somewhat like a rice drink.

We strolled back to the hotel…

This is how the room looked like~ Very minimalist and clean.

At about 3pm, we headed to the other side of the Takayama train station to gather for our guided trip to Shirakawago.

A little background story to this- We didn’t initially plan to go with a tour group. Shirakawago is a UNESCO World Heritage site, a small traditional village famed for it’s thatched houses known as gassho-zukiri. I chanced upon some extremely beautiful winter illumination pictures and planned the trip last year.

However, the tourist association board decided to restrict the number of visitors to the popular site this year, in order not to disturb the peace of the village, as there’s still residents actually living there.

I thought that’s really cool, but in turn, it presented some challenges to us cos we had to make reservations for the light-up event through the website. Although there’s overnight stay options, one day tickets and bus services, we had no luck with all of them.

The bus website kept crashing on us on the day of booking, and we opted for the overnight stay option but weren’t successful with the balloting. I wasn’t expecting this and since we’ve already bought the air tickets with the sole reason to visit Shirakawago, we turned to Yokoso Japan in desperation. It’s a whooping ¥23,400 (≈SG$300) just for a round bus trip to Shirakawago from Takayama. Do you hear my wallet weeping.