Osaka

We didn't make plans for Osaka as we just knew we wanted to eat, drink and see the neon lights of the city. When booking in England originally we only planned to stay one night but we changed our plans. Unfortunately the first Airbnb we found wasn't available for a second night and we couldn't cancel without paying so we decided to split the city and move from Kita-Ku to Namba.

After a nice morning stroll down by the river watching some rowers we checked out and made our way over to our new place via the Pokemon store at Namba station.

This was where our frustrations started. It took us an hour to get across to our next apartment as it was really hard to work out the stations, we finally worked out that we had to get a subway line which wasn't included on our JR pass but it was only ¥300 for both of us so it didn't break the bank. The annoying part was carrying bags up and down stairs as there's no lifts or escalators. The next task was to open the post box to collect the key, we wasted an hour trying to work out the instructions which really didn't translate well into English. In the end we resorted to Google and if anyone else has trouble I hope this also helps you! https://www.leopalace21.com/custhelp/en/other_f/00787.html.

We would defiantly recommend staying in the Kita area and travelling across the city using the JR loop line as this runs really regularly and pretty late into the evening.

Once we finally checked in we were ready to go on the free walking tour but sadly had no time for lunch so just picked something up from Family Mart. I'd recommend these walks as you always learn something new, there was lots of talk about food, toilets and Japan's education system! We of course walked down many busy streets full of bars and restaurants and went into the market. We saw lots of crazy street lights and signs including the famous running man. We also tried some local cuisine called: Takoyaki which is savoury dumpling made with diced octopus, be careful its piping hot!

After the tour we had another walk around and ended up having dinner in a restaurant along the water front and then a drink in the smallest bar ever down an alleyway. Not such a bad day after all!

Shirakawa-go see blosom trees

This World Heritage site is well worth a visit, the thatched roofed houses are really beautifully maintained and the place has a calm and relaxing feel - even with loads of tourists.

We arrived from Kanazawa at 10:30 earlier than we wanted, as the later buses were fully booked. WARNING its worth noting that there were spaces on the busses but not sat together as you can not book a female seat next to a male you are not travelling with, so book early as we did leave it a bit late.

When we arrived, we headed right out of the bus station to avoid the standard tourist route and walked up the 61 steps to the view point overlooking Shirakawa-go and giving great views of the mountains in the distance.

We went in the Wada-ke house which cost ¥300 each and we braved the tea again - it was much sweeter than the green tea in the geisha house in Kanazawa, a real comfort that it's made from wild grass and boiled in the iron kettle on the fireplace - yummy! It was Ben's birthday so the dated photo was a bonus.

We didn't stop for any food but there are a few restaurants if you wanted lunch or dinner and there are huts serving ice cream and takeaway foods. We covered the whole area and took a walk over the bridge to the other side where there is an open museum that costs ¥600 per person but we didn't have the time to go in.

We stayed for 3 hours as we were booked onto the 13:30 bus to Takyama but found out there were also unreserved buses at different times. However 3 hours was about right as we sauntered along the village roads.

To carry on the celebrations I booked us in to Yatsusankan Ryokan in Hida just outside Takyama. We arrived about 4pm, checked in and walked around Hida then we took advantage of the hot spring baths before an amazing dinner in our own dinning room, the number of courses was insane, so many little tasty dishes that were full of flavour, I can guarantee a food comer! It was a bonus that the cherry blossoms were out so they took us on a 10 min bus tour to see them lit up - it was well worth it!