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To reach our next stop, we crossed the country with a 6 hour train journey from Kyoto to Nagone and then through the Japanese Alps to Takayama. We spent two great days there, staying in an actual temple. Our room itself was a brilliant experience - it had Japanese style futons on the floor, a dressing screen, sliding doors without a
lock and a Japanese garden right outside. Actually there were no locks in the whole building, even on the front door, which shows how safe the town is. Our first day there we ducked out of the rain and went to some old style Government buildings. It was set in gorgeous Japanese gardens and was made of wood and the floors were covered in tatimi mats. At the heart of Takayama is a preserved old town, like Kyoto on a small scale. That was lovely to walk through, despite the rain. That night, we went for the most amazing food we had in Japan. It was called Hida beef, which was local beef cooked on a mangolia leaf right in front of us, with onions, vegetables, rice and miso soup. It was amazing!
The second day we were very lucky with the weather and we got to spend the day doing a walking tour through the town and forest. The forest
was very peaceful and the only people we met were the locals out for their daily stroll. In the afternoon, we went to an Onsen, with is one of the things that Japan is very famous for. Onsen are naturally occuring hot springs. The one that we went to had 2 Onsen indoors and 2 outdoors, some pools with bubbles like a Jacuzzi. There were seperate male and females one because you go into the Onsen totally naked! I haven´t felt so pampered for the whole of the holiday so far so I really enjoyed it!
Takayama was a wonderful mountain retreat that we both loved. It was very different to our next stop...Tokyo.
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