Takayama

November 13, 2025 from the itinerary: Explore the charming town of Tateyama on a curated half-day tour with your private guide. From 9-noon you'll experience the lively Morning Market, step back in time at the historic Takayama jinya and enjoy the flavors and ambiance of a local sake brewery and old town. Lunch - not included.

Amazingly, the futon was more comfy than mattress!  The mattress was extremely hard, so moved to the floor option about half way through the night.

A few issues with the hotel and my reservation which were rather discouraging.  Besides my name and room type being wrong, the hotel did not have my second dinner reservation for which I had already paid.  I waited for a decent hour (9am) before complaining to my travel agent who had already received a call from the hotel before 8am.  As if by magic my name was corrected when I returned from my day’s activities and I had a new person on the hotel staff working with me.  I suspect that my first person went back for training.  Yay for Mr. Kenjiro.

At 9am I met my guide for the morning tour.  Her name was Tomi.  She is originally from Kyushu, but has lived here for 20 years.  She is still considered an outsider, even after all that time.  She is married to a musician who does sound tracks for movies and they have a young 6 year old son.  She is 46.

Tomi and I started by taking the hotel shuttle to the morning market along the banks of the Miagawa River. 

This was really enjoyable to walk by all the small shops.  Highlights included a small cafe that sold local rice specialties, a place that sold chestnut flavored sweets, a very special tea store that offered free samples, and a bunny themed store.  I have all my Christmas shopping completed.

From there we walked by a local merchant’s Edo Period home that is open for tours.  At one point the Japanese government taxed based on the width of the front of a house, in which case this was a highly taxed individual.  The house was quite big and along the lines of those I visited yesterday, so not much more to report.

From there we walked over a bridge that had especially ugly sculptures of trolls with long legs on one side and long arms on the other.  They were based on similar sculptures that were popular because they were so ugly - not sure it made sense, but I went with it.

We continued to walk through the old town called Takayama Jinya looking at old and unique shops where I continued to buy all sort of food for my train journey tomorrow.

We stopped by the 200 year old Government House. This House was relocated, as were several other of the buildings near by, including parts of a castle from a nearby hill. The Government House was very big and impressive. It included a museum.

As we walked by various Koi ponds the fish jumped twice which is considered extremely good luck

We ended up at the sake brewery for a sake tasting.  Here I learned that the lower quality sake is rougher because the rice is less polished and I could taste the difference.  I got to try 4 different types of sake and a plum flavored sake - what we would call plum wine.  I think I preferred the plum wine.

After my tour was over I had a local snack of traditional rice cakes and green tea

and continued to look around the old town walking over to the large Tori gate and across to the Sakurayama Hachimangu Shrine.  

Then over to a very large temple - one of the largest I have ever seen and visible from my drive in yesterday.  This was called the Takayama Betsuin Temple treasure house, but I couldn’t see how to enter it to see the treasure, so just looked from the outside.

From here it was back to the hotel on the shuttle bus

and a foot soak in the “outdoor foot spa” downstairs.  Then to check out the public onsen that had a very nice outdoor bath.  From there upstairs to my own private onsen!  I will be very clean on this trip.

I felt sorry for this guy in the smoking cabinet

Dinner was a repeat of last night which I especially requested because I so enjoyed the beef.  My other choices were suikiyaki and another type of hot pot which I don’t really care for.

Tomorrow I’m off to Kyoto and a full day on the train.