Day 6: Life in the Forests
Because of the impending rain on Thursday we had made the decision to swap the order of our two days in Takayama, first doing the Kamikochi National Park trial today, and then strolling around the town and closer-in sites on Thursday. It will be raining in both places Thursday, but still made a lot of sense to avoid the one day fully focused on outdoors & nature being overrun by rain.
Kamikochi National Park is about 90 minutes by bus away,
require a transfer which may add to the time depending on how the second more
local bus is cadenced. We had to wait about 20 minutes on the way there, but
only 5 on the way back. There is a central route that takes you on either side
of the Asuza River that splits the hills and mountains in half. The trails were
well marked, signed and easily navigable. I’m sure there are proper hikes up
the hills and the like, but mostly everyone was just following the same route,
though there are some options. At times it will split into two fairly parallel
paths, one the “river route” that goes close to the river, and the other the “mountain
route” which is more hilly. Similarly, you can do a bit of a circle as there
are 2-3 walking bridges throughout.
The park is fantastic,
great views pretty much throughout, perfectly blue river water, great
topography of the hills, especially on the Northern side (so viewed from the Southern
side). I of course my usual spate of pictures but I doubt they’ll fully capture
how beautiful it all was. The river spins off to various streams and lakes which
just add to the beauty of the area. I generally do a trip each year in the summer
where I go to the western part of the USA and get lost in nature (Salt Lake
City in 2019, Calgary in 2019, Denver in 2021) and while I didn’t this year,
starting to think this is a bit making up for that at least. That’s why we
added Takayama to the trip – to get out of the huge city bustle. Kyoto if
anything is a lot more manageable than I remembered, but this is a nice bit of
solace before we head to Tokyo in a couple days.
The park has various hotels strewn out over the main path,
that each have little cafes and convenience stores. I think one may have a proper
restaurant, but basically all reviews we read about Kamikochi focused on just
getting food to go either before leaving in Takayama (which is what we mostly
did) or in one of these stores – which we did when getting soft serve about
halfway through. I would say the route we took is basically the conventional
one, and with some pauses it took us overall 4 hours from start to finish. A
four hours well spent with the lakes, the river, the scenery, the monkeys which
made an appearance towards the end (luckily not the bears – though there were
signs stating the last bear sighting was August 9th…). It takes the
effort of two buses, and the cost of about $40 round trip, to make Kamikochi
happen, but it was very much worth it as a day trip. I’m sure there are even
cooler places to get lost in the Japanese wilderness for a day, and of course
they have actual winter-activities like skiing in and around these parts, but
this was everything I was hoping Kamikochi could be.
We reached back to Kamikochi around 4:30, and milled around for a bit. With Al’s closed, and the only other craft beer option closing today at 5 (luckily tomorrow it closes at 7) we were left to just explore the say 5x5 block of the city center. It is a charming area with shops and restaurants, and a whole host of bars. The only weird part of everything is the schedule. Being so remote, it isn’t surprising that things like the shops close at 5, and then most restaurants close by 8 or 9 (save for a few Izakayas that go to 12). But then there is this weird gap when most of the bars only open at 9. Maybe there’s some odd city regulation that speaks to this but creates a very sleepy evening atmosphere for a place that still has a good nightlife. I guess people come here to laze around so in that way it makes sense.
Dinner was a bit of an adventure. We wanted to go to a yakitori - basically Japenese BBQ where you get plates of miso or soy topped raw meat and grill it (along with vegetables, and miso soup and the like). There is a bunch of these in Takayama, which is not a surprise given Hida Beef is one of the biggest features of the area. The problem is seemingly everyone in this quiet town, from locals to tourists (though I assume more-so tourists) want to go to these places so the first five or so we tried were fully booked. That said, what is somewhat known about some places in Japan is that they aren't super inviting to foreigners (I should say clearly, this is not across the board at all). There could be one or two who denied us for those purposes - especially two that strictly do not take reservations but said with great confidence that they were fully booked for the next three hours.
Anyway, on attempt I think five we found a place that would take us. The ratings are fairly good, a 4.2 on Google (most of the places we tried are 4.1 - 4.3, there are two seemingly that rate above...). The place as a whole was fairly good. We split orders of regular loin, regular kalbi (short-rib, boneless), steak (cut up in chunks), vegetables (better in this grill format than expected), and then ended with a round of the "premium" loin and kalbi - getting that twice becuase it was so good the first time.
It took us a bit to get the hang of the speed by which they would cook - it truly when the grill is at maximum heat, a 30-45 seconds per side affair to ensure you don't overcook or burn. On the side we had a few rounds of sake which were again excellent. They really are a great sipping drink.
From dinner, we did a quick rest-up at the AirBNB (again, the weirdness of the hours in this town leave this weird gap) before heading out for a couple drinks. First was a cocktail bar called Bar Rabbit Hole. Like with most things in Japan, there is just an incredible amount of class, delicacy and more than anything pride, in how any of these types of places work. The bartender is also a co-owner, and was great to chat with when recommending us different japanese whiskey cocktails with Japanese whiskeys. Each cocktail was meticulously presented, with the only complaint being it seemed like small quantities. More realistically, tehy just follow the quantities a jigger would suggest more closely than US bartenders do.
The other common practice we got introduced to here was being charged a seating fee of 800 yen (~$6-7) per person. Now while this is basically just a cover charge, it also entitles you to get a little plate of canapes which had a caramel chunk, a great yuzu-infused cream cheese over cracker, and some local fruits. Nothing overwhelming, but probably makes up for a significant amount of the cover we're paying. Rabbit Hole was just a great spot - and another aspect that I really enjoy about Takayama, that in a town like this that is sleepy and "in the wilderness" and all this, that places like Bar Rabbit Hole (or Run Dance Hall which we plan to go to tomorrow) still exist.
We ended the night playing some pool at a more local-focused establishment that translates to "Junk's" and nicely leans into that theme with decor of just random American stuff, like license plates and signs. It borders on being too kitschy, but overall worked fine. The pool and discussions, aided by Google Translate, with the locals was fun, but even better was having a Japenese Highball, which is a traditional highball of Suntory whiskey and club soda, with some specific Japenese-aspect that I couldn't quite discern about the way the two are mixed. Whatever it was, it was incredibly fizzy and quite nice. Junk's is not fancy, but for a standard locals bar, was another good sign about how Takayama just really has a lot going for it.
