Trip to the Countryside- Shirokawa and other places

Here are the long awaited pictures from my trip to the Japanese Countryside. For some reason the pictures got uploaded in reverse order, but i'll run with it.

This is the last part of the trip, we went to the city called Hida-Takayama. This place is famous for its old town district, as well as it's famous Hida-beef. We stopped the bus and wandered the shopping district and had lunch (seen below). I had one of the best meals Ive ever had in japan here (bottom right of the 3 food pictures) . It was Japanese Curry Udon, with Hida-beef. It was sooo succulent and warm. Perfect for the cold weather. The other dishes are ramen and curry with rice.

They had traditional cart transports in the old shopping district, very nice.

Before we went to Hida-Takayama, we stopped at Shirokawa-go, a world heritage site. This town has buildings that are over 300 years old. In the pictures you can see the traditional style thatched housing.

I bought a lot of omiyage(souvenirs) to hand out when I come back to the states.

McKenna and I had a lot of fun romping around in the snow and touring this old town.

The night before this, we stayed a ryokan (a traditional japanese style inn) Here they served us INCREDIBLE 8 course dinner and breakfasts. All traditional japanese foods like fried fish with the bones, skin, and head still on. As well as that famous Hida beef.

I look so goofy here I know...

The first day and first stop after our 8 hour overnight bus- ride was an old castle town called Kanazawa. This castle has the most gorgeous park that is still taken care of beautifully. The following pictures are of the grounds of the park. It had just snowed and was mighty cold! But McKenna and I had a great time wandering around and taking pictures.

I had more pictures of the castle itself, however I cant seem to find them anymore.

This trip was soooooo much fun. I love being out of the big city of Tokyo. I have a lot of souvenirs to bring back home, and many great memories from these two days. I am so grateful to McKenna for paying for this trip as a birthday present to me.

I wish the pictures could do justice to the great time I had.

I love you all, take care- where ever you are.

-Tony