Japan Trip '08 - Part 4

Day 11

Takayama, here we come! Our accommodation here was Zenkoji 善光寺. It was a temple. Not too sure if the temple was still functioning as one, or everything was converted into a hostel. This hostel didn't have a curfew, or we thought so as it wasn't stated anywhere. But, well, we had a little problem here. Will talk about that at the end of Day 11.

Took 2 trains to reach Takayama. As usual, there would be an information counter/center near the train station. Grabbed all the brochures and maps available. They are very useful references. Made our way to Zenkoji. Too early to check in, so left our barang barang at the entrance and started our exploration of Takayama.


Lunch wasn't anything special, so skip. Next, we were supposed to take bus to Hirayu Onsen area. I think most of us were addicted to the convenience and flexibility of driving our own car (because we weren't the drive, of course convenient lah! WAHAHAHAHAHAHAAA! Poor Zm...). So we were thinking whether to take bus or rent car. As we were discussion this, the bus went off. The next bus was quite some time away. Alright! Rent car! I think we all purposely one. No one wanna make the decision, so all act ai mai ai mai until bus went off, then can happily rent car. Must be!

Toyota Car Rental was nearby, and Toyota's good! I'm a Toyota supporter! Rented a 6-7 seater car, and they gave us a Wish. Make a wish. I wish for a Wish. =.=" Wishy washy. Okay okay. GPS was slightly different from yesterday's one, but no problem for our pro driver and navigator. Oh ya, they were the same people. =) So the rest can continue enter warp mode while on board.

Here's some explanation about this term "warp mode", in case you don't know what is warpping or how is it linked. Warpping means getting you instantaneously from one place to another. So, imagine you are on the car. You close your eyes, and the next moment when you open your eye you realised you are at another place already. That's warpping! Well, in fact, actually a lot of time has passed when you "closed" your eyes, but who cares! So long when I open my eyes and I'm at my destination, that's a nice warp! =) Zy is best at it. She has the best warpping system. Her warp initiating sequences were able to execute in just a few moments. (In short, she can almost sleep the moment the car moves.) Man, is this making me sound geeky? I'm a geek. I'm a geek. I'm a geek.

At the Hirayu Onsen area, there were quite a number of onsens for us to choose from. There wasn't much references we can use, so we could only choose by looking at the name. Forest Onsen, God's Onsen, Onsen blah blah blah. Okay, I can't remember which onsen we chose in the end, but that doesn't matter anyway. Why? Because we overshot, and went further up and found Kami no Yu 神の湯, which literally means God's Bath. It must be fate, and being lazy to turn around and go back, we went to Kami no Yu instead. =\

The place wasn't as impressive as the name was, in the facilities i mean. The entrance was just a normal wood + zinc hut collecting admission fee. Okay lah, close to nature. A fast running stream was just beside the onsen area. Rest assured, although been so run down and close to nature, there were still sex-separated baths. Guys on the lower slope, gals on the higher slope. Prior to coming here, we learned our lesson @ Beppu. Bring your own towel. Yuppie! We had our towel this time.


The hot bath has a sulphuric smell. So this is a real onsen, not just hot water. Maybe it was something good that we chose Kami no Yu. Kami no Yu was located on higher slope. So we got the cleaner water! MuAHaHahAhAhAhAHaHahAHaAhaHAhAhaHHaHahaHAhAHaAaa! Sorry, it's late at night now, and I'll feel higher at night. =D)

On the way back to Takayama, spotted a waterfall. Okay, I don't know how to pronounce this name. The waterfall was splashing so much water, in the mist form, around. Just by being near the waterfall, we already got ourselves drenched. And it was pretty cold. Water was around air con's lowest temperature? Or higher a bit? But ya, it was fun! Zw took off his top and attempted to enter the waterfall zone. But failed. The plungpool didn't look friendly. And followed by Zm taking off his top off. Just to take a topless photo. Pervert... Ero-san...


Dried ourselves up a bit before entering the car. Not good to get ourselves sick at this point of time. Day 11 only. Next stop, back to Takayama, Kitayama 北山 Park. Actually it was supposed to Hida Folk Village first. But when we reached there, it was already closing time. So skip.

Kitayama Park there had a stretch of road which had plenty of hydrangreas. Very beautiful. In fact, I think we saw hydrangreas everywhere we went since Day 1. They are all around. Anyway, parked our car outside a coffee house, Ichii. Time for toilet break. Found the toilets further up. Oops. Cemetary just beside only. And the rain came pouring down. Dashed for the toilets and hid around there for the moment. A tiny shelter at the toilet, with the cemetary beside. Not really a good spot eh?


Lucky for us, the rain cleared up slightly after a while. Ran to the coffee house where we parked our car and had a nice hot drink over there. Nice ambience and view @ the coffee house. Funny thing was after we made ourselves comfortable at Ichii, the rain cleared out totally. We suspected the rain was just water sprinkled by the coffee house whenever they saw "potential customers" nearby.

The journey had to go on, couldn't stay too long sitting around doing nothing. A nice park up there and it had a mini playground too. We were suckers for sunset. Whenever we saw orange sky with the sun setting, everyone started to snap fanatically. Know why we were never a sucker for sunrise? Because we are a bunch of lazy people who didn't want to wake up early. XD

After that, we hit back to Zenkoji and parked our car there. Free parking! Hooray! Searched for dinner place. Dined, go back rest.

When we were back @ Zenkoji, we went to the common area to use internet. Met up with some other countries' backpackers and had a short convo with them. Started with some asking of backgrounds and stuff, then we started to exchange knowledge. One of the backpackers told us about Kamikochi 上高地.

Cui originally wanted to put this into the itinerary, but due to the lack of information on it, it was taken out. Now having more information, Cui suggested putting it into the next day's itinerary. Going to Kamikochi will mean a change in our schedule and money issue. We had a discussion back in our room.


Think we were a little too worked up in our discussion that our volume went a little too loud. Zenkoji's walls were all paper wall. So sound leaks out easily. The "headmaster", owner of Zenkoji, came by and had to tell us to lower our volume. =\ That's starting of the issue I said right at the start of this post. No curfew, but you had to really whisper super softly over there. And maybe you have to use super soft Whisper too. Ah... Sorry.. Lame pun joke. =\ =/

Conclusion of the disucssion - Kamikochi's in. Furukawa's out. The rest squeezed to Day 13. Set. Sleep...

Day 12

Kamikochi is a lovely place. It's a very well-preserved area. Nature at its best with minimal alternation from humans. But getting there is a headache. Firstly, private cars are not allowed to enter Kamikochi. The only way in is either through bus or taxi. So even with our rented car, we could only get close to it and take bus in.

With the limited information on hand, we know we had to go to Hirayu Onsen and take bus from there. A 2-way bus ticket costs 1800 yen, 20 odd SGD. Watch out for the bus timing too. There's only 2 buses every hour.


It was a good thing that we reached Hirayu earlier, as the carpark wasn't that near to the bus terminal. You had to walk around 5-10min (as told by Zw) to get back to the bus terminal. Zm and Zw dropped us at the terminal and went to park the car. The parking fee was 500 yen.

As we entered Kamikochi, we were really awed by the scenery that appeared in front of us. Green, green, green, green! Everywhere's so green and beautiful! Man! That was definitely something I've never experienced before. Alighted at the bus terminal of Kamikochi. After a short toilet break and some quick bites (Zy hungry again), we began our hike.


Set a few checkpoints for the time being - Kappa-bashi -> Myojin-ike -> Tokusawa. Noted something special, although this place was quite flooded with tourists doing hikes too, the place was pretty litter-free! Everyone was doing their part in keeping this place clean. And so I did my part. I did help to pick up some litters that I came across during the hike! =) So proud of myself! *Give myself a pat on the shoulder*


We stopped over slightly before Myojin-ike for a lunch break. They were selling this BBQ fish and everyone seemed to be eating that there, so we gotta try it too. The fish was directly taken from a breeding pond (??? I think so), skewed and BBQ at the fire pit. Simple process, but the fish was delicious. Just lightly salted but the fish was great.

After lunch, we went visit the Myojin-ike. Admission fee 300 yen. I swear, it's a scam!!! Or maybe I don't the importance the pond holds. I don't know why we have to pay to visit this particular pond here. =\ Xiao Guilin free admission lor! *grumble grumble grumble*

From this point on, we had to speed up a little. We had taken too much time while walking from Kappa-bashi to Myojin-ike. Kinda overrun you see.

When we finally reached Tokusawa, the time left was not here not there. Go back it would be kinda early, while go up further will be gamble if we can make it back in time. Decided not to go for the gamble, we headed back to the bus terminal. On the way back, we resumed the slow pace and took more photos along the way.


Back to the terminal, waiting for the bus to arrive. But I felt something was quite wrong. Did the last bus just went off? Were the last bus timing what we thought it was? So I went around looking for the bus schedule. Right. Last bus was 7pm and there was another @ 630pm. But the last 2 timing had some special marking. Ah... Only in operation during special season. So we did miss our last bus. We had to take taxi back down to Hirayu, and it wasn't cheap taking taxi in Japan. 6500 yen from Kamikochi to Hirayu PER cab. =\

Because of this incident, our stubborn Cui kept blaming herself for it. We spent god-knows-how-long to finally calm her and convince that it wasn't totally her fault or not even hers to begin with. She's one unique person. But I'm not going to discuss her character here. I'm main lead here, not her! WAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAAA!! Keep the limelight on me.

Anyway, that was over. Back @ Hirayu, drove back to Takayama, and dinner! Good night. Not much planning was required for the next day. Tommy came and told us off btw. =~(

Day 13

Our last day in Takayama. Woke up earlier to catch the morning market. 2 of them, Miyagawa Market 宮川朝市 and Jinya-mae Market 陣屋朝市. We didn't really buy the vege and food there, but just to see how a morning market is like. The market was within walking distance from Zenkoji.


Miyagawa Market was along the river. And I think it was more suited for tourist. Beside having the morning market stalls set up along the river, there were shops by the side too. Omiyage (souvenir) shops. Got my sarubobos from here. Jinya-mae was stalls clustered together in front of Takayama Jinya, currently a museum. I think you would be able to buy some cheaper fruits at these morning markets. Fruit in Japan is darn expensive!


Next, back to Zenkoji to get our car and off to Utsue Shijuhattoki 宇津江四十八滝 (Utsue 48 Waterfalls). This place supposed to have 48 waterfalls here, but I didn't manage to count all of them. Maybe each rapid was considered as one waterfall too? But some of the waterfalls were really nice. But we still prefered the first waterfall we came across on Day 11.

The next destination, Shirakawa-go 白川郷 was pretty far away. Took around 2 hours to reach there on car. Potential Initial D routes along the way, uphill, downhill, lots of hairpin turns. But with a 7 seater car, and 5 passengers in the car, Zm was banned from Initial D-ing. =


When we finally reached Shirakawa-go, Wow... It was some kind of disappointment for me. The place was really beautiful, but it was damn packed with tourists! Tourists all over the place! The original houses of this village have very steep roofs. This is because during winter, snowfall is very common around this area. The steep roof will help to keep the snow off. Although packed with tourist, the place was literally litter-free too.

After walking around a bit, we went up to the viewing platform further up on a hill to catch a view of the entire village below. I think our stay in this place was even shorter than a single trip from Takayama to here. Travelling around really took up a big chunk of our time in this trip.


Okay, back to Takayama. Parked our car at Zenkoji, and went to a food street nearby. Chose one of the lower end restaurant there and had dinner there. Ji and me didn't order anything. Because on the way back, we stopped at a Mac and had a happy meal. We were collecting the toys. =D

Back to Zenkoji, sleep. Moving on to Lake Kawaguchi next.

To be continued...

Japan Trip '08 - Part 3

Alright. After a long period of procrastination, it's time to continue. Firstly, recall from the previous post that I've mentioned 3 things.

1. "Zy starting to feel sick."


2. "My left knee was starting to give my a slight problem for now."


3. "The Lord of Destruction's coming!"

Yeah, these 3 points will be the continuity for Part 3 - Day 8.


Day 8

Day 8 was a start of terror for me. Not because the Lord of Destruction was coming, my left knee was giving me real problem now. The night before, the knee's pain was still pretty bearable. But by then, the knee was unable to support much weight anymore, and considering that I'm HEAVY. Oh well... Only myself to blame, who ask me never go exercise, then all these problems always surface.

Anyway! Leg got problem, but the trip still had to go on. Couldn't possibly ask me to stay back at the room and do nothing for the whole day right? And it wasn't like the leg will miraculously get healed the next day. So let's struggle on! Endure! Oh yeah, and thanks to my considerate mates! Despite me dragging the whole group down by walking super slowly, they had never abandoned me! Or maybe they were just too shy to do that. Or they did tried to kick me off the cliff when my back was facing them, but failed. In any case, I'm still alive, thank you, mates!

Originally Day 8 was to visit USJ instead of Day 7. Originally, Zm, who was arriving on Day 8, was to join us @ USJ on Day8. But after planning his route from Narita Airport to USJ, the earliest he could join us was around 2pm. No point, he missed half of the day already, so we swapped the itinerary between Day 7 and Day 8. And hence, the start of the day, we were going to Ikeda to visit the Instant Ramen Museum! WOOT! Sound interesting right? Inside should be able to try out some special instant ramen too right?

However, Zy was feel even worse than yesterday. She gotta gave the morning a miss. Okay, so we went Ikeda without Zy. Bought her some food and milk for her brunch. "Take care, Zy!" And we left for Ikeda.

Took the train to Ikeda. Then as we were trying to get our bearing and figure our way to the museum, an uncle approached us. This uncle, some tourist association people, asked if we need any assistance, and so we told him we were looking for the instant raman museum. Guess what. UNCLE TOLD US THE MUSEUM CLOSED ON TUESDAY!


This one was my fault. I was the one who suggested the swapping of Day 7 and 8 itinerary and assuring that everything will be okay. Shucks! Some more the night before I even visited the museum's webbie to find its location and stuff, everything, except its opening days. I'm so sorry!!!!!!!!

It was a pretty start for our day. We took a photo outside the museum, with disappointed look on our face to show that we did try to go. Someone up there sure didn't like us, or maybe just me. Heavy rain came pouring down. I couldn't run, only could limp hastily to the nearest shelter. We made a dash to the 100 yen shop which we passed by earlier on. Bought an umbrella each there. Okay, all set! Let's move on.

Saw a shopping arcade nearby, so went in and see. Ah! Lots of shops closed too. Then we realised something. Tuesday was this area's rest day! AHHHH!!!!!! Basically the rest of the stuff we did there was just to waste time. So skip, next back to the train station.


At the train station, if I'm not wrong, that was our first time spotting such a cheap noodle bar! 300-400 yen could get you a decent bowl of soba/udon. Since it was close to lunch time, why not have our lunch here! Okay, something not nice happened here again. After consuming my stuff, sat around a bit, suddenly I felt I was going to black out. Didn't know was it because of the pain I had been enduring since the start of the day, the rain, or the stuffy noodle bar. So I told them I needed to go out to get fresh air.

Breathe in, breathe out. Trying to control my breathing properly. Trying to focus as black spots were starting to invade my vision. Just then, they came out of the bar. With the magical hand of Cui, she helped mi to do some massage on the neck. Ahhh.. Starting to feel better. Gaining my vision back. Thank you! Now, thinking back. Did I accidentally offended "something"? Hmmmm.. That day did really seem bad for me. *shake shake head*

Went back to Umeda, but the time was still too early. There was still about 1/2 to 1 hour before Zm arrived. So we went to the Gyoza Stadium to have a mini-feast. This Gyoza Stadium was something similar to Takoyaki Museum, many stalls selling gyoza. So we did the same, everyone chose one stall and ordered the smallest set available. Ah! The winner was Zw again. His gyoza was the best!

Met up with Zm, brought him to Hotel Kinki. Zy feeling better already. So full force, whole 6 members, moved off to our next destination - Osaka Castle. Oh! At Osaka-koen Station there, we first spotted the selling of Yao Zai. It was the mascot for JR West, a platypus. But Zy said it looked like Wy, so Zw gave it the name Yao Zai. Daji bought the small version of Yao Zai. Zy didn't buy any because she claimed that the small one looks ugly and the big one too bulky.


Went to Osaka Castle before. I personally quite like the look of the castle. And considering that only the castle building itself requires admission fee, yeah, why not? Just visit it! Assuming the interior should be something similar to Himeji, all of us just admired the beauty of Osaka Castle from outside.

Next destination was Osaka Aquarium. We walked to Morinomiya Station from Osaka Castle and took the subway to Osaka-ko. Apparently the aquarium wasn't that near to the station too. Limp, limp, limp, limp~ Ah! I know! Must be because I was being too lame for the whole of first 7 days. Brrrrr~ cold.....


The aquarium was quite a nice place, that is if you like marine life. If you don't really like marine life, okay, there's still other stuff like sea otters, penguins, sea lions, and Zw.. er.. I mean alligator. And you sure won't possibly hate dolphins right? Those dolphins will show off to you by doing leaps outta water. Good showing off. Think the highlight creature of this aquarium is whale shark. Yeap. That's Osaka Aquarium for you.


After that, we took bus back to Osaka Station because they didn't want me to walk that long distance back to the Osaka-ko Station. The bus stop was just nearby. Yah, nice bunch of friends right? I LOVE YOU ALL!!!

Sleep... Next day moving to Kanazawa!

Day 9

Everytime when moving from one accommodation to another was quite a tiring thing. Usually we had to move off earlier, so that we will have more time for the day to walk around. Never mind, the time compromised on sleeping can be redeemed while taking the long train journey. Everyone carried a heavy backpack, that's tiring you know? Eh... Zw and I were using the army duffel bag. The new black one with trolley wheels. =D I was still lame on Day 9, btw.

Anyway, the train was @ 8+am and reached Kanazawa @ around 11+am. First thing we always did was to check-in our barang barang first. Our accommodation was Shibaya Ryokan. Not a bad place. Decent walking distance. But no internet and surrounding no unsecured Wifi.


After checking in, went back to the train station and acquired more information about where to go in Kanazawa and how to get there. 3 locations planned - the Geisha district, Kenroku-en Garden 兼六園 and Nagamachi Samurai District 長町武家屋敷. Bought a day pass @ 500 yen for unlimited ride on the tourist bus. This tourist bus' route basically stops @ the main sights of the town, so it would be easier for us to get from point to point. But before that, lunch! Had a nice lunch set. Salad + Dessert + Omu Rice.

First stop, Geisha district. If I didn't remember wrong, we went to the Higashi-Chayamachi ひがし茶屋町. It was near to the river. Quite lost around the around. Geisha wasn't that easy to be spotted walking around. It took lots of lucks to see one, and we had none. =\ So what else can we do here? There was a house opened to public, free admission. There wasn't much stuff inside either. Luckily for us, a nice nice uncle briefed us on the house. Then when we asked him more information about the surrounding, he offered to take us for a short walking tour! And he speaks good english too!

So he guided us around , explaining the districts, and informations about the Geisha. Currently there are 16 active Geishas working there. Only 8 of the houses there are lived by Geishas, the rest have been coverted to normal housing. The uncle taught us how to differentiate between a geisha house with a normal one. A Geisha house will have a sliding door-like window on the second floor, which the normal house wouldn't have.


For an hour session with the Geisha would cost you around 200,000 yen (I think that's the amount. Or maybe more.) , which is 2k+ SGD. That's expensive! But guess what? The Geisha in Kyoto is even more expensive, it's around twice of what they are charging in Kanazawa. Oh! The youngest Geisha in this district is 20 odd years old only, while the oldest is 40 odd. Yeah, thanks to that uncle, we had a meaningful visit @ the Geisha district. If we were to walk around aimlessly, we wouldn't be able to gain so much knowledge about Geisha here.

Moving on to next stop, Kenroku-en. Quoted from Wikitravel, "The most famous sight in Kanazawa, the Garden of Six Attributes is considered one of Japan's Top 3 gardens." Alright, the garden was really very nice. Nice greenery, nice landscape. But perhaps I couldn't appreciate the beauty of it well enough. Maybe it was my fault too that the others couldn't do so either. Because I was walking almost @ the snail pace, it was impossible to fully explore the whole garden. Sadded.


At one of the rest points inside the garden, an uncle initiated a convo with Zy. A funny convo captured with the video cam. He also made a comment on the passing-by Cui, saying she's bijin 美人. Ah! Everyone should be understand to understand the kanji right, so I don't have to translate to english. Cui didn't like that flirting uncle.


Alright, outta of the garden and on to our last scheduled stop for the day, Samurai District. From the bus stop, there were directions guided along the way. So it was not that hard to find the place. Within the district, there was one particular residence which was opened to public, of course with an admission fee. Nomura Residence's admission fee was 500 yen for adults. It's like a mini-museum within the house, showing items from the samurai period. The residence has a small, but very beautiful garden.

Okay, end of the day's sightseeing. Went to check out the car rentals which were situated near the train station. Ended up @ Toyota Rental which had a 6-7 seater car for us. Took quite some time communicating with the guy @ the counter. He had to use some online translator and print out to let us see. Okay lah, at least he's trying his best and not pushing us away despite having communication issues. Good service! Reserved the car for the next morning and time for dinner!


Dinner @ a sushi bar. Free flow miso soup! But I only had 1 bowl. I'm not cheapo Singaporean! Tried the Chu-Toro. 500yen gold plate. It's the medium fatty tuna. Woot! So much better than normal tuna! Alright, cannot afford more than 1 plate. Most of my plates that I took were white plate, 105 yen. Save money... Of course got a few other plates here and there lah.

Go back. Prepare route for next day. Sleep.

Day 10


Collected the car at 8am. It was a Toyota Picnic. Driver was Zm, and Navigator was Daji. Zm was the only with International Driving Permit, and Daji had learned how to operate the GPS with Japanese menu. All set! Move off!

We will be visiting mostly the coastal areas of Noto Peninsula 能登半島 first. Due to lack of information of Noto, we had to raid one of information centers in Noto first before planning the exact locations to visit. As Lonely Planet suggested, Wajima 輪島 has a good information center with english speaking staff. So, first stop is Wajima Information Center.

Had a little pitstop at a convenient shop after exiting the highway. Bumped~ A startled way to make all of us fully awake for the day. Zm humped over a high curb. Well, that curb was in his blind spot. Er... Okay, pitstop. Calm down, people, calm it. Toilet break, stock up of water and tidbits for the road trip. Onwards to Wajima Information Center.

The crippled stayed in the car when arrived at the information center. So no idea what was being asked and what information they had and stuff. It was lunch time, and I think they did ask for somewhere for recommendation. It was a restaurant nearby, Onajimiya おなじみや.


This part is interesting. The uncle and auntie inside couldn't speak english, and we had limited capability in japanese. After a long rojak conversation, we managed to have our order made and an assorted sashimi plate. =) I ordered myself a Katsu Don. Yum yum~ The sashimi came first. At first I thought it would be quite a miserable plate as we only ordered 1000yen per pax. I was so wrong! It was pretty good! Sea urchin, tuna, prawn and some other fish which I couldn't identify. Worth it! I LOVE SASHIMI! I LOVE JAPAN! SEND ME BACK THERE!!!


Alright! Let's move on. Wajima port. Wah! Lots of boats docking over there. Quite a sight. But we had to find a place to park, so we went up further. WOW! A nice coast here! Let's check it out. The wind was good. The view was good. I mean, what wasn't good there??! After walking around there, we then found out that area was known as Kamogaura Coastline.

While moving to our 2nd destination, saw a viewing platform along the way. So stopped there for a moment too. I think this is something good about self driving. Anytime you see anything nice, you can stop and see. You have more flexibility in the itinerary. Yeah!

Anyway, I can't remember what was the 2nd destination, but I know it supposed to be some trekking trail. Impossible for me to do in that state. And the trail ends up in another area. Can't leave our car here and trek back right? The distance isn't that short you know. So abandoned plan, move on to 3rd destintation.

3rd stop was Ganmon Kongo. Forgot it was Ganmon or Kongo being a common name, we ended up a bit off from the actual spot we wanted to go. Or maybe the whole stretch was Ganmon Kongo. Along that stretch of coast, there were many natural rock formations by the coast. Quite a sight. Tried asking 2 uncles for directions. Oh man! They spoke with an accent. But both of them really very nice and helpful. One of them even gave us his map that he put in his lorry. He marked the point on the map and gave it to us. Hmmmm... Japanese are nice people eh? SEND ME BACK THERE!!!!


Anyway, we finally got it there. Er... Actually I also didn't know if that was the place or not. But who cares! Got interesting to see can liao lor! The coast here was a little special, the soil/sand looked like hardened volcanic soil instead. Hard and rocky. The soil here made a lot of dents on the soles of my slippers.

Time's up! If the car overdue, we gotta pay a lot extra for it, so it's better if we could return earlier. Luckily because of this thinking, we got some more time on hand to visit the beach which we passed by earlier when we were going to Wajima.


Turning into the beach, and we immediately saw a group of girls playing there already. It was sun setting time. Woot~ Superb! took lots of photos there, though most of the photos you can't really see the face. LOL!

Oh! Daji got asked for email from one of the girls. Because we took a group photo with them, and as goodwill, we wanted to send them the photo too. Our rep was Daji. Well done, Daji!

Time to rush back. Pump petrol along the way. SAFE~ Reached back at the Toyota Rental in time. Dinner time! This time we split up. Those wanted to eat ramen go eat ramen, those wanted to eat Mac go Mac. I went for ramen, but after the meal, I bought another McPork to snack on. McPork!!! I LOVE MCPORK!!! SEND ME BACK THERE!!!!

Sleep... Moving to Takayama the next day.

To be continued...