Trip of Hida

The best thing about this trip is that, we've had no plan at all.

This is a lucky trip.

-------

Saturday I WoWed till 5 in morning.

Woke up by 8. Exhausted.

And I'm suppose to meet up with Yuki by the Clock Tower at 12:30.

I know if I go back to sleep again, there'll be no way I can make it to Nagoya on time, so I had to play WoW to keep me awake. A grusome way to start a weekend morning.

Saturday we didn't do much. Ate a "famous" katsu-don at top of Nagoya Station (13F), hanged around in Sakai, drinking with James and Yuki at night.

There's this eatable raw-shrimp, which, according to James, can't be find anywhere else but in Japan ONLY. And it goes perfect with beer.

I'm totally in love with that and I've had like 4 or 5 packs already after this new discovery. I'll probably have another couple before I left.

For some unknown reason.. we drank a lot that night and couldn't stop till 4 in the morning. We were suppose to go sleep at 12 and leave the first thing in the morning around 6 or 7 because Hida is far far away from Tsushima.

......

Personally, I think it was close to a miracle that we can still leave by 10:00. Yuki was constantly complaining about his weird stomach and Daphne was sleeping all the time on the car. We were tired.

Nagoya has one of the world's most expansive Highway. 150km costed us 3500 Yen. People are willing to pay this much money to use the highway because highway is "suppose to be" very fast. However, due to the long weekend, there was still traffic jam... Useless highway, it was.

We've arrived Hida around 1:30, was going to a ramen place yuki recommanded. But because it was too hot and the ramen place don't have parking place nearby, we decided to just go this random ramen place with a long line-up.

For some reason... this is the first time I've had ramen in japan ever since i came here. And it was... well, everything to me is good. According to Yuki, it was better than the one that he recommanded. Oh well, lucky~

Since it was a long weekend and we didn't make any reservation at all, we've expected to come back to Nagoya that night. But we got lucky again and found a hostel right away, in the center of Hida. Lucky 2.

After we parked the car and rested a bit, finally, at 3 in the afternoon, the trip of Hida has finally started.

















Here's a bridge that's just around the corner of the hostel. The river down there was clean to the point that I actually felt ashamed about Shu-Lin's river which garbage has piled as tall as a full grown man... But of course, Shu-Lin was no vacation spot... I guess that explains part of it...

















And we went to this city hall from the era of 幕府. Of course, the size can't compare with today's city hall, yet it still took us about 40 minutes to finish browsing it all.

Because there was no free English tour today and our only english tour guide is useless Yuki. So from time to time we have to secretly follow taiwan tour group and listen to their explanation.






















That's a.. big wood. No idea what is it for, posted it coz I look okay good on this picture.

















That's a corner of a japanese old room. The dead guy is Yuki, after driving for 3 hours and only had 5 hours sleep last night, he was walking like a zombie all day and whenever he had chance, he'll lay down just like that.

I was leaving a msg on guest book, not studying.

Daphne was.. I have no idea what the hell is she doing.

















Really really want to try to eat hotpot with the thing in the middle... must be fun...

...

After the city hall, the temperature seems to dropped a little, so we started to explore the old street. Well... it was nothing but shops... but it's always fun to fool around...

















That's a bad picture, but I really liked this cap.

6000 Yen...

Almost bought it...

















I'm destroying national treasure.

















That's the old street. Just like what it seems on TV.

















That's the hostel we've stayed. I'm holding my shoes coz we were playing in the river, so I had to walk back to the hostel with bare feet. The room was big enough for 6 people, and the price was reasonable, the only problem with this hostel is that it closes at 10 and no shower after that. Way too early for kids like us, it's a very good hostel for old people.

After we all took shower and rested after old street, comes the highlight of this trip.

Beef of Hida.
















Easily the best and most expansive beef I've ever had. It was super tender and juicy. All other cows ought to be ashamed to death once they've tasted beef like this.

The taste was unbelieveable... we were all speechless and carefully cooking each piece of these beef. It's really really really really really good.

Words are always short at times like this. One have to taste it in order to find out exactly how good it is. Totally worth the 3000 yen (200 g).

And note that it's still NOT the best beef in japan. Even not the best beef in hida... Man... gotta come back for the best beef later..

After the amazing beef, it was over 10 already and we were late for our hostel. If they lock us outside... it'll be funny.

We bought some beers and called it a day.

-----------------------

I woke up the earliest because I was the first one who fell asleep the night before.

8:30 in the morning, we still have no idea what are we going to do today.

Before we were kicked out of the hostel, we decided to spend some time at old Hida Village in the morning while it's still not too hot.

















And here we are. It was pretty and sorta educational.

I wasn't amazed by the old village, but I can't stop find it astonishing that how well Japanese has preserved and protect these places so that everyone who appreciates these ancient stuffs can easily come and have a wonderful time.

















Again, I'm ruining national treasure. Tourist that day must have found it annoying since I was kept hitting it as loud as possible and trying to make a song out of it (but failed).

...

Daphne's camera was outta of battery at this point, so no more picture afterwards.

...

Daphne wasn't so interested before she came because she can't appreciate these stuffs and she've been to Gero's old village before.

But it turns out that this one is much better than Gero's (according to her) and I guess she sorta enjoyed it a little.

It was fun. Especially while I was hitting the big bell.

...

Next stop is onsen.

Because we have decided to go all the way to gifu on the way back and eat the super delicious katsu-don, we only grabbed some snacks from convenient store on the way to onsen and ate in Yuki's car.

To be honest, it was too hot to have onsen in the middle of a day. But for its price, it was totally worth going. If we are to enjoy the same quality onsen in taiwan, it'll cost at least 6 folds more.

Japan people loves onsen way too much... for some weird reason... :P

.....

Gifu, Yuki's home town, was our next stop.

I haven't been to his house for... almost 3 years already. Everything looks the same, his parents, his grandma, grandma's grocery, the super delicious katsudon...... and as it gets closer to Yuki's town, I felt downer and downer.

It's hard to explain my mood at that time. On one hand, I'm glad to see everything still the same - I can still remember lots of things we did together with akio, ken and kuni 3 years ago at this place. On the other hand, it makes me felt like I'm the only one who still circling around at the same state as 3 years ago... while everyone else has already moved on...

Seems like I'm the only one who's.. still not working and still wasting my time... :p

Maybe it's not entirely true, but at least that's what it seems like..

Nice.

-----

Katsudon was still amazing. I was glad and felt much better after that.

Much much better.

-----

After that we drove straight back to Tsushima. We chatted till 12 and then Yuki left.

I was trying to WoW and clear some exp bonus bubbles. But I was too drowsy and kept felling asleep and died so many times.

Went sleep at 4.

The End.

---------

It was the best trip ever since Kenting, I have to say.

And the best part about it is that we had no plans at all. ^_^

A lucky trip.