Today is our last day in Takayama, so we spent the day exploring and eating our way through the city. First stop was climbing up to see Takayama Castle — yes climbing, yes it’s still hot, no there is no breeze in the forest. We also found it really funny that there were bear bells and bear signs e.v.e.r.y.w.h.e.r.e. along this trail, even though the first sign says that a bear was last spotted in 2018. Fortunately we survived bear country, Japan and the only injuries were mosquito bites. Being in the foothills of the Japanese Alps, really any hike is beautiful. About halfway up the climb, we also stopped at a Shinto Shrine.
Interestingly, in Japan, many people practice both Shintoism and Buddhism, so many times there are Buddhist Temples and Shinto Shrines side by side. You know it’s Buddhist when it’s labeled a temple and Shinto when it’s labeled a Shrine.
Now a wander back into Takayama city center where we sampled alllll the street food. Hida Beef (aka a type of the famous Wagyu Beef), then some glutinous rice balls and rice sticks covered in sticky soy, gold flake plum sake and then what we thought was frozen strawberry and mango popsicles that turned out to be frozen jello…
We ended our day wandering to the grocery store to pick up some bits for our travel day tomorrow and then back up to the old part of Takayama to see the Sakurayama Hachimangu Shrine at dusk. Really peaceful walk as most of the town is quiet after 6pm, and a really beautiful shrine.
