Okay, So I have travelled to over 70 different countries and stayed in more hotels, inns, hostels, ryokans, cabins, and resorts, than I could ever attempt to count… so when I say this is without a doubt my FAVOURITE HOTEL in the entire world, I have a lot of different accomodations in my past that I am comparing it to.
When I was making arrangements for this trip back in April, I had originally intended to stay a couple of nights in a more Western style hotel closer to the old part of Takayama where the transport issues are – until I saw a Japanese video posted by someone who had stayed at this ryokan. It just looked amazing and I have been looking forward to it for six months. 
The entrance to the hotel is fairly unassuming – perfectly manicured gardens are ‘de rigeur’ here and seem quite common everywhere. 
But just on the other side of those shrubberies is a world all of its own… a large koi pond featuring equally large koi. A cute little walkway over the pond which leads to and onsen foot bath (fresh hot mineral waters piped into a knee deep bath where you can remove your socks and shoes and soak your weary feets). 
An outdoor lounging area that wasn’t seeing much use given it was max temps of 10-11C while we were here and lows of 4C and 2C overnight.
We were welcomed by a lovely young lady named Kyaka, who checked us in, brought us some drinks, hot towels and showed us through the quiet and dimly lit hallway to our room.
The decor was very traditional, except for the slightly elevated futon beds. In the room waiting for us was some snacks, and green tea and an explanation of where to find things in the room – yukata and jinbei (Japanese style pyjamas) to wear, a bunch of amenities for us, and an opportunity to specify what time we would like to have dinner and breakfast etc. 
The bathroom was neat and all panelled in fresh cypress – it smelled amazing! 
And had a traditional Japanese shower space and a large and deep cypress tub inside.
But the best bit… omg! So excited – was the stonking huge granite onsen bath in our own private garden. <3 I couldn’t wait for Kyaka to finish her introduction so we could have a shower, scrub up and then slide into this amazingly beautiful bath in this cute little garden space. 
The bath was a steady 40-41C and was just bliss. The water at this particular onsen comes from 1200 feet below ground and is particularly high in minerals which make the water so soft it feels kinda slippery… it was so steamy as the ambient temperature was only about 8C or so.
In what is now become quite our usual habit, we shared some saké acquired on our way to the ryokan and had a good soak. Love it!
After some work and another soak in the bath, it was time for dinner. Our dinners were served in a private dining room on the second floor of the hotel – and Kyaka was looking after us for dinner also.
The ryokan has some lovely open spaces that guests can use if they wish, but we hardly saw anyone – in fact with the private onsen in our little garden, and having a meal in a private dining room, we could swear for most of our visit that there was hardly anyone else staying at the inn. The only give away was the shoes all lined up in the morning as people were getting ready to check out or go to town for the day. There are no shoes worn on the tatami mats here, only tabi socks. Even the staff are silently walking up and down the hallways in socks.
Dinner was a multiple course kaiseki meal – starters consisted of:
– mustard paste inside a slice of lotus root
– minced fish and chicken with poppy seeds
– cooked shrim in ginger
– mackerel sushi with vinegar
– boiled quail egg boiled in persimmon juice
– grilled eggplant and yam cake topped with sesame sauce
– pickled and marinated koi
Oishi! So delicious. 
Matsutake mushroom soup with shrimp, pike and eel.
Sashimi – roasted Hida beef with plum flavoured onion sauce. 
Sashimi – amberjack and mackerel.
Local saké. 
Steam turnip with mushrooms and lily root, stuffed with ginkgo nut.
Hida beef steak with vegetables.
Grilled freshwater sweetfish stuffed with roe.
Whipped pumpkin topped with abalone.
Local steamed rice, miso soup with mushrooms, tofu and pickles.
Sweet potato cake and seasonal fruits… I love the little maples leaves they are decorating our meals with seeing as it is autumn. You just know someone in the kitchen is tasked with finding the prettiest leaves for the job.
After such an amazing meal, we let our dinner settle and then it was back into the onsen again… I could really get used to this. You can just feel the tension draining away from all your muscles, and even though the air temperature was quite cold, the water was so inviting that you barely noticed it.
I slept like a log! Possibly due to the very busy week we’ve had? Possibly due to the quietness of our little garden with the water trickling in the background? Possibly due to the nice firm futon mattress? Or (more likely) due to an elegant sufficiency of saké!
Woke early and opened up the paper screens to see this beautiful setting – and well, had plenty of time for another soak before breakfast, so why not?
Breakfast was another lavish affair of itty bitty dishes filled with very tasty things!
The menu was rather more casual for breakfast, which was excellent. 🙂 
Oh wouldn’t you know it – the onsen beckoned once more before we had to head to town for the day.
When we returned from doing transport stuff in the city, I had an opportunity to pop into the ladies public onsen in the hotel. Not all rooms here have a private bath like we have booked and there is a men’s and ladies onsen baths that swap over day to day so you can try the different bathing spaces. There were dressing tables for about six people, all full of amenities – soaps, lotions, shampoos, conditioners etc. 
A space for dressing and changing and to store your clothing while you bathed.
A post-onsen relaxation space where you could have complimentary cold beverages and even try out a massage chair.
And, as the onsen was unoccupied I was able to take a photograph of the baths here. The Japanese are very ritualistic about their baths – which I love, but one of their customs is that tattooed peoples re not allowed in public onsens. Some ryokan will make exceptions for their Western guests (as we are highly unlikely to be connected to local organised crime gangs) but others are very strict and ask you to cover your ink. I have no idea what the policy is here – I didn’t ask… but it was the primarily motivator for booking a room with a private bath. That and bathing with strange people who you don’t share a common language with gets pretty boring pretty fast. 
So we didn’t make use of the public onsen and made use of our private garden bath again! I’m so enamoured of this little garden oasis – I took so many photos. 
Oh more saké before dinner? Don’t mind if I do!
Prior to arriving I had requested the special Hida beef kaiseki meal on our second night. It was at a small additional cost, but given Gifu is so famous for their Hida beef, we felt it would be worth it. Kyaka kept referring to it as the ‘Too Much Beef Dinner’, which we thought was cute.
The appetisers tonight were:
– small salmon sushi
– shrimp grilled with poppy seed
– apricot jelly
– Mozuku seaweed
– stewed conger eel with soy-sauce jelly
– stewed broad bean
– deep fried chestnut with fish paste
A rare selfie taken in our private dining room… the ‘glow’ is the saké, of course. 😛
Sashimi: sweet shrimp, tuna, yellowtail.
Grilled Hida beef sushi.
Conger pike dumpling.
Hida beef steak
Hida smoked beef (on Sakura cherry wood) with plum flavoured onion… there was a wisp of smoked trapped under the glass bell, and it was so beautiful presented and tasty!
Hida beef shabu-shabu 
Local rice, filefish soup.
Dessert of purple yam on a sakura pudding and yuzu sorbet.
The meals here are quite the experience – trying new things, sampling new tastes, preparing each mouthful to get a complimentary combination of flavours. It was quite late before we felt up to getting back into the onsen. I’m going to miss this!
For a late night snack, we had some Takayama Pudding-tei that we bought back from town with us… no word of a lie, this is creme brûlée in a jar.
Next morning, we had opted for western breakfast which consisted of ‘Way Too Much Food’! Toast, an egg to scramble on the little stove, a salad, some muesli, seasonal fruits, and not pictured – English breakfast tea. All lovingly presented and wonderfully fresh. 
As a parting gift, Kyaka gave us some chopsticks as an unexpected gift. A very thoughtful touch.
So, yeah. My this is now my favourite hotel EVER! I have stayed at the Waldorf-Astoria with a view down Fifth Avenue in New York. I have stayed at the Hotel Fortuna in Rome, with a view over the Trevi Fountain. I have stayed at the Four Seasons in Sydney, with a glorious view over Sydney Harbour. I have stayed at the Grand Hotel in Prague, with an uninterrupted view of the astronomical clock. I have stayed at Samphire on Rottnest Island with the quokkas. I have stayed at an Adnaan Resort in the Maldives… so yeah, when I say that of all the hotels/inns/resorts that I have stayed at, this place is now my favourite hotel ever, I’m not kidding. It was absolutely amazing… and I look forward to coming back again some day.
Takayama’s Old Town district isn’t very big so a few hours is a goodly amount of time to spend wandering the streets here – unless you get side tracked.
There were chop stick shops, LOADS of sweets, biscuits and lollies for sale, puddings, beef stores, fans, glassware, ceramics, and cutesy as hell Japanese kitch. 
Cute little glass chopstick rests… I nearly bought a set to bring home but while the chopsticks I bought home from Kanazawa back in 2015 are probably the most used and useful souvenir I have ever bought from anywhere, we tend not to set the table too fancy when we are having Japanese at home. So they probably wouldn’t end up getting used much. 
These fans remind me of the hundreds of fan shops all over Kyoto… Takayama is sometimes called ‘Little Kyoto’, as its old town district is relatively well kept. 
Takayama is also really well known for its Hida beef… this is a Hida beef bun – the type you usually get full of pork. Mr K felt that he just *had* to get one and it I stole a bite, it was really tasty. 
This guy actually represents Daikoku who is one of the Seven Gods of Fortune. This god is said to be a fusion of the mythological creator of Japan, known as Okuninushi no Mikoto, and an Indian God…. weird combo.
This is his, ‘I’m not working for ten minutes together, and there is beer and beef!’, face.
Why hello? This is where I parked my car!
Anyway… what was Hello Kitty doing in the middle of my saké adventure, anyway? I think we accidentally wandered into saké heaven… there are so many breweries here that there are walking tours and special maps showing you which brewery is where.
Okay, so that was just one Takayama saké store – it isn’t even one of their brewery store fronts! >.> This may take longer than we anticipated… 
Oita Sake Brewery Kamisannomachi *(I think… by the time you get to the end of this you’ll see where the confusion is creeping in!)
This place was directly across the street from the Takayama Cafe…e
Funasaka Saké Brewery…
This place was great – you pay 450JPY for a little cup and you can fill it 12 times from 12 different bottles in their range that are kept in a big fridge you can access.
Matsuzaka Saké… 
So many people lining up for the token machine!
It was so easy to just hook into this… $10 later and you’re really quite toasted.
Quaffable stuff and well worth a stop!
Ummm.. Kawashiri Brewery I think? :/ 
It was about this point that we decided we should get back to our accom as we had more work to do and I was rapidly ending up in a state where I wasn’t going to useful at all!
Gorgeous little town with heaps to see. And we didn’t even touch on their weird retro museums and other offerings.
I just love this place – I’ve been here in summer, but I think I may have to come back in winter to see it in yet another season. Their cherry blossom area is quite small – so there are many more impressive places to go for cherry blossoms.
After leaving Tokoyama we head towards Gifu Prefecture – the views were gorgeous around every turn. High speed photography isn’t my favourite but I did manage to grab some half decent shots of the landscape. 
And then we came out of an 11km tunnel* and it was snowing again! 😮
I haven’t packed for full on snow… but glad I bought my Merrell, gortex hiking boots with me!
Oh so cold, but so beautiful.
As we left Toyama and head towards Gifu Prefecture, we decided to stop at Shirakawa-go.
The thatched roofs are really impressive:
Ω
Interesting info from Wikipedia:
This statue depicts a person in a ‘Japanese raincoat’ made out of straws. They were particularly common due to availability of materials, well up until the early 1900s…
Shirakawa-go is pretty cool – there are still people living and working here, unlike some of the open air museums that are set up with some of these types of buildings just for tourists to visit. The village caters pretty well to visits, though it seems less so at this time of year – less cafes etc open.
More snow and more tunnels on the way to Takayama.
I’m assumed this said: “Do you need snow chains, stupid?!” But it actually use makes mention of the tunnels ahead. Boring. 
And some lovely coloured leaves I found on the ground near our ryokan… 
No, not shops that sell actual gold like the Ponte Vecchio or something, but things covered in ‘gold’… mostly craft items and beauty products either that are either guided in, or contain gold leaf. And, somewhat weirdly loads of food products with edible gold leaf on them – though it’s anybody’s guess why as gold leaf doesn’t seem to have a great deal of taste about it. **shrug**
And less of the traditional Japanese lacquerware etc…
There is quite on lot of hand blown glass products with gold accents of course that seem really popular and always with the saké sets – we’ve noticed that since our last visit to Japan in 2019, there seems to be a trend towards saké jugs shaped like this one, rather than the traditional little carafes that you see used in restaurants a lot. They seem quite neat and I dare say have a much higher capacity than the small carafes, which I imagine is what is putting the restaurant industry off adopting them. 🙂 
I mostly came here to hunt for some new chopsticks. I bought four sets of lovely ebony chopsticks last time we were in Kanazawa and they are the singly most useful and used souvenir object I think I have bought back with me from any trip ever… but so far I haven’t seen any designs that took my eye for every day use at home.
The gold leaf, gold powder body products are destined to remain a mystery to me, though. I was Google Translating posters and signage like a mo-fo today, and do you think I could find anything that was able to explain ‘why’ having gold in your face creams, lotions, potions and actual face masks was supposed to be good for your skin? Nope. Not so much. The one store person I asked what the gold is good for, responded by telling me it is ‘very skin luxuriating for your complexion’. So… yeah. I guess it looks pretty and seems super fancy is the reason for it?
I promise there were actually quite a few people wandering around here today – I just seem to have taken most of my pictures of these old buildings and winding little streets with hardly any people in them. 
Pikachu in a kimono is apparently a limited edition Kanazawa Pikachu… the lady in the store went to great pains in broken English to let me know I couldn’t get this particuar stuffed Pikachu anywhere else. 
This wasn’t actually in the Pokémon store it was just a display in a regular chemist when I popped in looking for a nail file. Cute. 
And wait we did! It was a good 45 minutes of listening to customers being called (in Japanese!) by the time we realised just how long a wait this was going to be! And by then you’re committed right? We ended up waiting about 75 minutes to get a table!
This was definitely going to be one of those, ‘oh dear, I hope this is worth it’ things, and while I was pretty confident that I’d be happy with my wash once we managed to have some dinner, I was less confident that Mr K would find the wait worth his while given he’s not the sushi/sashimi fan in the fam. 
Speedy conveyor built sushi train:
Mr K once he realised that his beer would arrive cold and immediately! Happy face – thankfully.
The menu was quite extensive with pages and pages of offerings under each category, and our orders arrived really promptly. 
Saké and beer to start, like there was any doubt about this. I had some Tateyama Gingo saké and it was cold and delicious (it’s getting so much easier to order a drop I know I will like, the more familiar I am becoming with the local products). 
The food was delicious and imho, well worth waiting for. I had some salmon an some yellow tail sashimi, as well as some maguro tuna and some ikura ships. Everything was delicious and fresh just as you would like hope at a Japanese port town. 
Mr K catching up on some serious news.
The pics that show up when you search a place are often quite handy so you know what you are looking for…
Anyway, you’d think this wouldn’t be too difficult a task… look up the brewery, find an address, type it into Google maps (and the car’s archaic GPS unit for good measure) and off you go! Oh if wishing made it so! We found the general area okay thanks to the aforementioned navigational devices, and then seemed to be stumbling around a bit lost until I saw this door – and remembered seeing it on the images that popped up on Google Maps. Awesome – we are in the right place. So I asked a guy who obviously worked there, who happened to be passing by, and he directed me slightly down the road to a doorway….
On the corner of the next block – totally not visible at all from where the ‘helpful’ worker was pointing was one of the buildings that I saw on the Google Map. 
And I can’t read a lick of kanji… when it comes to saké I know that I like ones on the dry end of the scale, not to heavy on the aroma. Definitely nothing sweet or cloying (some are downright syrupy), and I quite dislike saké that feels like it should be labeled ‘vodka’ or tastes of grain spirit. Over time I’ve learned that I like the junmai gingo or junmai daiginjo and I have been to enough breweries and tastings to have some favourites.
Oh and they had FIVE fridges this size all full of different offerings that you could try. Some of this fridge was full of vintage saké and limited edition runs which is a bit of a bitch because two of the ones I liked in this fridge aren’t even available for sale! 
I tried about nine in my 15 minutes and took some photos of some favourites. I gotta say it was a lot of fun… there were a couple of other guests there who were also talking and laughing (in English) about tasting against the clock – they turned out to be Japanese and Croatian but both living and working in Berlin at the moment. We tried to divide and conquer a little but just ended up telling each other which ones to try. 🙂 
It was good fun – I bought a nice bottle of junmai daiginjo to take away and couple of little cups as a memento. Then we ventured south in search of the next brewery – which was the Yoshino Tomo brewery. 
Thankfully a little easier to find. Definitely not as slick an operation as the Masuda brewery and we walked in and were hard pressed to find anyone to show us around or give us any information. 
This little tanuki was by the door with a big ‘Welcome’ sign but to be honest it wouldn’t have surprised me if we were trespassing again – the welcoming committee was non-existent and we couldn’t seem to get any help at all.
After poking around for a while and using Google Translate to decipher many many labels, we decided to bail out and took some notes of anything we might like to try down the track from the supermarkets. Seemed easier!
I have seen the Kisaki pink in the shops before so now we have a bit more info, it might be worth giving some of these a try. At least the labels are distinctive so we’ll be able to recognise them easily.
Oh look… there is the Masuizumi Junmain gingo at Lawson’s that I just bought at the last brewery, for JPY400 less than they charged at the tasting room! Oh well, live and learn. 🙂 
Next stop was a roadside services for lunch – and I have to say, even dodgy roadside food here is better than a lot of the cheap and cheerful Japanese restaurants that we have at home. I’d go so far as to say convenience store sushi is better than most Australian sushi trains restaurants. 😐 Disappointing but there you have it. This katsudon meal with miso soup was roughly AUD$10 – and it was delicious.
Here, I met a lovely woman who had been living in the US for a number of years and her English was exceptional. We had an in-depth discussion about the various types of saké, and she led me through some tastings. She gave me a pile of information on different varieties and practices that various different breweries were engaging in. 
Turns out, that without even realising it – I have developed a taste for ‘purest saké’ (because of course I have… champagne tastes on a beer budget my entire life!). Meaning that the sakés I have found I enjoyed the most are the ones with the least amount of additives. Anything with ‘junmai’ on the label is pure saké, made only with rice, natural waters and koji (koji being a fermentation culture). Which totally explains (for me, at least) why I dislike some saké because it’s too sweet, (likely has sugar added), or to strong in it’s alcohol taste, (likely has grain alcohol added).
This mural is called a Fusama painting and it was apparently created by Kahoolawe Ueshima, who is a well known local arts who works in the ParalymArt collective – I have no idea what that is, but it appears to be a significant art community according to our host. 
We have a cute, private little garden space; I love the rain chains and have often wondered if they would look out of place in suburban Brisbane. lol
Now to sit down to do some serious work, which of course requires – saké!!! Kanpai.