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16 Nov to 26 Apr 2006 11 days self-drive trip in 岐阜県 Gifu perfecture, Japan. A journey to discover the "old" Japan. 関市 Seki, 美濃市 Mino, 郡上八幡 Gujo Hachiman, 飛騨高山 Hida-Takayama, 奥飛騨 OkuHida, 白川鄉 Shirakawa-go, 平瀬 Hirase, 下呂 Gero Total Distance driven : 756KM 
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Detailed Itinerary
| 16 Nov 2006 |
0100 SQ672
SIN - NGO 0815 Arrive Chubu International Airport (Centrair) 0930 Rental car pickup at airport - Toyota 5D 1.5l 4WD with GPS and snow tires - Reservation via Tocoo Online 1100 Arrive at 関市 (seki) Short stopover in 関市 seki - The town of Sword Making Small town famous for making samurai swords in olden times. Not much pracitical need for samurai swords, so the town now makes quality knifes and interesting blades for all the purposes you can think of. Lunch: れすとらん山久 Soba Restaurant Yamakyu Tel: 0575-22-0128 Excellent soba shop in Seki. We had the tempura ebi soba, roast duck and cold soba ... all excellent tasting Visited one of the knife shops 関の刀物 and bought a nice looking slicing knife 1430 Arrive at 郡 上八幡 gujo hachiman Check-in 中嶋屋旅館 nakashimaya ryokan Tel: 0575-65-2191 やなか水のこみち yanaka-sui-no-komichi, charming water walkway with a natural drinking water source ... first taste of Japan's famous water for this trip ! 1800 Dinner at 中嶋屋旅館 nakashimaya ryokan Tempura Ayu (japanese sweet fish), grilled amago, mushroom tempura, sashimi, orange jelly desert and many many more |
| 17 Nov 2006 |
Walking around 郡上八幡 gujo hachiman
- The town of Water Gujo hachiman is famous of its quality clear water. The entire town has rivers, canals and streams flowing in along every road and every grid of town. Numerous springs all around town produces clear natural spring water that is drinkable. You can taste the freshness in the water いがわこむち waterway walk with many large Japanese crap (koi) 郡上八幡城 gujo hachiman castle overlooks the entire town 宗祗水 sougisui is one of the famous springs. Authorized by the japanese government to be one of the clearest water. Japan best top 3 water source  "BEST" tasting water is at a spring near the statue of Chiyo mid way up to gujo hachiman castle. The water here tasted more "crispy" than the rest of the sources ... my opinion! |
| 18 Nov 2006 |
Day trip to 美濃市 mino - The town of Paper Short drive (30mins) from gujo hachiman to town of 美濃市 Mino which is famous for making of japanese washi paper and some historical preservation merchant houses Oyada Jinjya shrine Udatsu preservation houses There are 2 streets of conservations house which features the fire preventation mud wall to hinder the spread of fire. Fire were the main concern in those times where wood was the main building material being used Visited a 200 year old merchant house, now a shop selling sake and other local produce. The house had various interesting antiques (one of those old telephone booth with a winding lever) and various antique wares from really long time ago. The house has several large baskets (about 2x1x1m) hanging above the the roof of the first floor. In the event of fire, these baskets will be used to transport belongings out of a burning the house   Lunch at 六鹿 Chance upon this little sushi shop that sells an award winning steamed hoba sushi ( japanese rice/mushrooms/eel wrapped in hoba leaf and steamed). We ordered the hoba sushi, unagi temaki and chirashi sushi. Excellent !!   Japanese desert place とみや Warabi set, Matcha set, chestnut & rice cake in red bean soup Dinner at 泉坂 Modern yakitori place .. order the Hida Beef steak, mushroom miso, hotplate chicken, nagoya style chicken wings |
| 19 Nov 2006 |
Drive from 郡上八幡 gujo hachiman to 高山 takayama Decided to drive the "normal roads" instead of the expressway, not only saving on toll, but also more interesting road-stops available. 道の駅 highway stop route 472 磨墨の里公園, 明宝  Passed a very steep and winding single lane mountain pass. Brought us deep and high into the mountains cutting across the maple and cypress forest. Amazing yellow and red maples canopy along the route. Excellent !! 
 Note: Kind of challenging to drive if you are phobic about steep and winding single-laned mountain roads but lucky for us we only met 2 on-coming cars throughout the entire section of the mountain pass 道の駅, 2nd highway stop at パスカル清見  Lunch at 清見滝 My order came with 3 bowls of soba and assorted vegetable tempura ... including a tempura maple leaf !   Took about 3-4 hours drive as we took multiple toilet/shopping/snacks road-stops !! More soft ice creams, Hida beef croquette, skewered rice balls with miso sauce ... when is the next road stop coming up. 高山 takayama 1400 Check-in あすなろ asunaro ryokan TEL: 0577-33-5551 -150 year old merchant house which is now the main reception of the ryokan, amazing authentic japanese wood architecture   - quick short walk to 国分寺 and main street just to explore the place with the remaining daylgiht available. A giant ginko tree in the temple grounds Back to あすなろ asunaro ryokan for dinner Dinner is another elaborated multi-course meal presented in little thachted roof bento ... looks as good as it taste ... another day of pure over-eating !!   |
| 20 Nov 2006 |
Walking around 高山 takayama central 陣屋前 jinya-mae morning market 高山陣屋takayama jinya, the former goverment house of takayama during the edo period. Only remaining of the 60 goverment houses during the Edo period. The rice granary, the oldest and biggest in Japan is know to be 400-year old. Glimps of the grand scale, daily goverment administrative and architecture of the edo period Explored the san-machi area where there are various conservations houses,antiques shops, sake brewery shops, eating places, souvenir shops  Lunch: 寺久 ( around junction 下一之町 and 安川通) - Jumbo tempura prawn teishoku - excellent gyudon (beef rice bowl) 高山屋台会馆 Takayama Festival Float Exhibition Hall - 5 of the 23 festival floats are displayed here. - Note: English tape recorder playback available for free. 樱山日光馆 Sakurayama Nikko Kan Tickets from the festival float exhibition hall also get you access to the 樱山日光馆 (sakurayama Nikko Kan) , which has an impressive 1/10 scaled-down model of Nikko Kan (2hrs north of tyoko). Worth a look even thought we have been to Nikko to see the actual Toshogu. Impressive model that took 33 craftmans 15 years to build |
| 21 Nov 2006 |
Day trip to 奥飛騨 oku-hida Drive from 高山 (takayama) to 奥飛騨 (okuhida) took about 90min 新穂高ハイキングコース shin-hokata ropeway Tel: 0578-9-2252 Luck was with us for it was a wonderful day with perfect visibility of the Japan Alps. Picture perfect view of the snow covered alps in clear blue skys in all directions at the viewpoint at the end of the 2nd section of the ropeway at 2156m above sea-level. We are now in the geographic center of Japan !   平湯大滝 hirayu no taki Tel: 0578-9-1250 - one of the top 10 falls in japan, 6m across, 30m drop. - The entire water fall freezes in winter and there are special light-ups. Guess we are too early in the season to see that ...NEXT trip I guess. ♨♨♨ 平 湯の森 hirayu-no-mori Tel: 0578-9-3338 - EXCELLENT!! 露天風呂 rotenburo - outdoor hotspring pools - the men's bath had about 6 outdoor onsen pools. (2 with milky white water, the other are clear water with white particles and of different temperature) Return to takayama for the night feeling very refreshed |
| 22 Nov 2006 |
Moving on to 白川鄉 shirakawa-go Leisurely drive from takayama to shirakawa took about 3-4hrs (I am sure one can do it in 2hrs as stated), as usual we needed our favourite road-stops for snacks and local produces (soya bean cake). Look out for the gujo or hida fresh milk in little glass bottles, they are very creamy, thick and tasty. 1500 Check-in: 合掌の宿 よきちyokichi Tel: 05769-6-1417  Could only manage to visit the 2 famous viewpoints before it turned dark - Ogimachi Jyoseki (this get you the bird's eye view of the entire Ogimachi village) - from the padi fields in front of 生活料馆 (postcard view of the 3 thatched roof houses)  a ♨♨ Onsen 白川鄉の湯 shirigawagou-no-yu Tel: 0576-9-60026 Dinner: Yokichi Tasty home-cooked food ... especially good grilled river fish iwana |
| 23 Nov 2006 |
Exploring Ogimachi, shirakawa on foot ... Walk the entire Ogimachi village, visited Wade house and the temples around the area Shifted to another mishuku in Ogimachi,Shirakawa Check-in: 合掌の宿 かんじゃkanjya Tel: 0576-96-1457   Drive to 平瀬 hirase (15-20 mins) ♨♨ Onsen: し らみずの湯 Shiramizu-no-yu Tel: 0576-95-4126 Dinner: Kanjya Similar home-cooked style, again the grilled iwana was my favourite |
| 24 Nov 2006 |
Moving on to 下呂温泉 gero onsen Leisurely drive to Gero (3-4hrs). Gero is the Top 3 onsen in japan !! Check-in: 湯之島館 yu-no-shimakan Tel: 0576-25-4126    The setting of the ryokan was fantastic ... built among the cypress forest and maple trees Onsen-ji The onsen temple was a short walk away from the ryokan. Maple leaf autumn colors were in full glory at onsen-ji   ♨♨♨ 湯之島館 Onsen !! 1900 Dinner This is one of the most elaborate dinner, sliced fish shabu shabu, hida beef tepanyaki, chef hand made tofu, sashimi, a whole range of starters, so much food that that we took more that 1.5hrs to finish dinner |
| 25 Nov 2006 |
♨♨♨ 湯
之島館, men and ladies public baths are switch daily so that all can enjoy
the different layout of both the outdoor baths Back to Nagoya 名古屋 After a good bath and breakfast we embarked upon the drive from gero to nagoya Lunch: Ramen place Orignal plan was to reach Nagoya at 1400hrs, but we got stuck shopping at UNICLO (something like a small scale warehouse for winter clothings) 1630 Arrived in Nagoya , returned rental car at Kamimaezu outlet Check-in: 名 龙 meiryu ryokan Tel: 052-331-8686 Dinner: Takeouts from JR Nagoya Takashiyama basement food places - Kuro butan bento (black pork box set) - taco yaki - the famous nagoya chicken wings |
| 26 Nov 2006 |
0630
Check-out: Meiryu, Subway to 金山 kanayama, Switch to JR Meitetsu Line to Centrair (Nagoya International Airport) 0810 Arrive Centair, Nagoya International Airport * Timing is only possible as we happen to catch a 0735 express train to the airport with only 2 stops in between 0950 SQ671 NGO - SIN 1515 Arrive Singapore |