Today, is a day of travelling. Today, we are going to Shirakawa-go, a place that I wouldn’t think of specially making a trip to, until my cousin managed to convince me to make the trip. You can’t possibly imagine just how much work I have done, just to get us from Tokyo to Shirakawa-Go, but I can tell you, it is all worth it.
We woke up very early in the morning to check out at around 6.45am. We went to the hotel concierge to arrange for luggage delivery from Shinjuku to our boutique hotel in Kyoto, which we will staying at the next day. Japan is one of the few countries to offer such a service, and all visitors just love it (or at least those who are aware of this service) because it’s just so convenient and there’s no need to lug any luggage around the train stations. After everything’s settled, we then proceed to catch our train to Tokyo to take the shinkansen out.
This was my initial planning, which we somewhat did follow all the way:-
16/12/16 (Friday) Shirakawa-go trip
07:00 AM Check out & arrange for luggage delivery service to Kyoto.
07:45 AM Leave to take train to Tokyo (latest)
08:36 AM Board Shinkansen Kagayaki 505 (Departure track 21) to Kanazawa station
11:08 AM Reach Kanazawa station, search for Nohi Bus boarding point at east of station / explore station for food
13:10 PM Board Nohi bus to Shirakawa-go.
14:35 PM Reach Shirakawa-go Omiguchi bus stop. Check in to Shimizu
17/12/16 (Saturday) Go Kyoto
10:30 AM Check out
11:25 AM Board Nohi Bus back to Kanazawa Station.
12:50 PM Reach Kanazawa Station
13:56 PM Board Thunderbird Limited Express (Departure track no.2)
16:09 PM Reach Kyoto / buy ICOCA + Haruka bundle / Recharge ICOCA / buy one-day Kyoto Sightseeing pass for 2 adults
You have no idea how much work goes into planning this, which train to catch, which bus timing to book for, etc. You have no idea how stressed I was to adhere to those timing, because the shinkansen seats were reserved in advance, which means we HAVE TO catch that particular train at that particular timing. But in the end I’m so glad my planning was quite all right (except for the long wait the next day to catch the bus back to Kanazawa), giving us plenty of buffer time and didn’t have to rush around like headless chickens.
We didn’t get to choose our reserved seats, as it’s randomly chosen by the JR station staff whom we bought our shinkansen tickets at on our first day in Japan. But thankfully he gave us the seats on the left, and because of that, we get to see Mount Fuji as the shinkansen went on its merry way to Kanazawa!
Can you see anything? No? Okay, this is a super close up view from another spot, credits go to Bruno for taking this though!
Nice, right? :D Anyway we were just so enamoured by the views that passed by us…. such clear skies…
And then the bullet train went into a mountainous tunnel, and when it came back out in the open, the scenery turned to this:
Like, WOW. A sudden change in seasons or something, lol! Bruno was so excited and he was just busy snapping away on the camera. Can’t blame him – he has never seen snow before. XD
We finally reached Kanazawa, and since we had an hour or two free before we catch the Nohi bus that I’ve booked online, we went in search of lunch after we determined where the bus stop would be. We ended up at Pomme’s for their omelette rice, which was nice, but nothing much to shout about.
After lunch, we just lingered about in the shopping mall, before heading to catch the bus that will bring us to Shirakawa-Go. The journey there was pretty uneventful, but I still enjoyed the scenery very much.
I’ve been monitoring Shirakawa-Go’s temperature for quite a bit before the trip, as I wanted to make sure we would be warm enough for the trip. Bruno was a little excited about the snow in Shirakawa-Go’s live cam, but it always seem like it just snowed lightly during the night and it’ll melt away during the day. So I told him to manage his expectations – it may not snow during our one night stay. It seemed to be that way as our bus passed through Kanazawa – there’s snow on the ground, yes, but it’s not snowing when we were there.
The bus finally reached Shirakawa-Go, and we alighted the bus excitedly – just to get my shoes drenched in melted snow. ARGH. Apparently it snowed quite a bit overnight and the snow was all piled up at the side of the roads, and they were melting! Ahhhhhhhhh wet shoes and socks in such cold weather were a no-no! Geeeeeez! I started cursing myself for not wearing the uncomfy North Face all-weather shoes for the trip. What’s worse is that I have no idea where Shimizu Inn, the inn which I booked one night of accommodation in Shirakawa-Go, was. I mean, yeah sure, I have a paper map…. but it’s not really drawn to scale, and the whole village looks the same – all gassho huts! Damn. So we tried to walk according to the map… further and further away from the bus terminal… and then we started to wonder if we were heading the wrong direction. At one point, I was even contemplating to call the inn because I was getting a bit frustrated and felt that we were lost. Suddenly Bruno pointed up a small hill and asked if it could be there. Then, a small sign caught our eye, and it says Shimizu Inn, with an arrow pointed up where Bruno was pointing. Thank goodness! We finally found the inn, and the owner quickly let us in to the warmth of the hut.
She showed us to our room, and gave us some directions to the points of interest in the village. I then asked if she had some winter boots to lend us, as we wore only normal sneakers which were obviously not suited to walk in the snow. She cheerfully told us that she would dig and bring some to us from her shed, which she really did. Big thanks to her, I had proper winter boots! I stepped out of the inn with the winter boots, and saw that it’s snowing! It’s snowing heavily!!!! And it’s SO quiet where the inn is at, because it’s almost towards the end of the village where no tourists would come. It’s so peaceful, so quiet, so surreal just standing there and watching the heavy snowfall. Bruno was so excited and happy as it’s his first time experiencing snow, and he kept asking how did I chose the date/day to come so that it snows when we arrived. I don’t know really, but I’m so glad I chose this day for him to experience snow for the first time.
It was already a bit late by the time we set off from Shimizu Inn, and we missed the last bus that would bring us up to the observatory point. Bruno insisted that he wanted to go, so we ended up walking on the stroll path up to the observatory. It says stroll, but…. it’s just honestly an uphill climb. Who’s the person who came up with the term “stroll path”?!? Ugh. What’s with me and uphill climb in snowy conditions? Once in Lapland isn’t enough… now again (albeit a less strenuous climb) in Shirakawa-go. Meh.
We managed to reach the observatory after about 20 minutes or so, and the view was so breathtaking! For some reason all the photos I’ve taken there had this blue tint, so it doesn’t look that pretty but trust me, the view in person was really very good! We spent quite a bit of time at the observatory, before going down just as the skies turn dark at around 4.45pm. We decided to stop by a small supermarket to browse their items, and we noticed a takoyaki food truck parked in front of it. Out of whim, we bought the takoyaki from the food truck and omg, it tasted so good! Soooooo good!
We then slowly made our way back “home” to Shimizu Inn, where we were informed that dinner would be at 6pm. We went into some souvenir shops and bought some souvenirs for Bruno’s friend while walking back. By that time, most of the buses that were heading back to the main cities were gone, and the whole village was very quiet. It was such a nice slow walk back to the inn, enjoying the silence and the cold air around us. It started snowing a little again as we walked back – which was nice. =)
Dinner was like an extravagant affair, so many things to eat! We had another Singaporean family of four in the same inn, staying overnight as well, so it was funny just hearing them chatting and the parents nagging their two kids while all of us ate together. The food was so homecooked, so everything was fresh and tasted marvelous. After dinner, we retired to our room and simply just spent like 3-4 hrs on the futons, surfing facebook and reddit and playing mobile games etc, until we got too tired and slept. There really wasn’t anything else to do, LOL.
The next morning, we had a sumptuous breakfast again, before we paid the very nice inn owner and left to catch the Nohi bus back to Kanazawa, to continue our trip to Kyoto. I had overestimated the time needed though, we spent about 90 minutes in the bus terminal waiting for the bus that I’ve booked for. Well, it’s better than rushing here and there I supposed…
After we reached Kanazawa, we had a bit of time to grab lunch, and we opted for a nice looking pork bento set to eat on the train. We also grabbed some freshly made onigiri (no photos though sorry) for the long journey (it’s a 2 hours journey from Kanazawa to Kyoto), to our last leg of the trip. And yup, that’s a can of coffee. Hot too – from the vending machines haha. I had to drink sweetened coffee during my whole Japan trip – they were okay-ish, but I just wished there were non-sweetened milk coffee too. Sigh.
For more photos on this day, please click on my Flickr album link here.
For Japan Trip 2017 itinerary / content page, please click here.
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