I sometimes find the unexpected to be the most interesting experiences one has while traveling. No matter how carefully planned a trip might be, it's what isn't supposed to be happening that makes or breaks the entire experience.
Today was supposed to become increasingly cloudy and to turn to rain in the early afternoon. Instead the weather remained sunny and bright right up until we were ready to catch our train out of Takayama headed for Kanazawa.
Earlier we had opted not to have breakfast at Yasuda Pension wherre we spent the night but dropped in instead to a small cafe in town -- where we were abe to watch quite a bit of a major tennis tournament "live" from Miami on a huge HD TV set while enjoying our "morning service" Western-style breakfasts.
Wandering around the historic district with its beautifully preserved seventeenth century cityscape, we began coming upon preparations for a major city-wide festival evidently scheduled for tomorrow. Usually visitors need to visit the local festival museum to see examples of the massive and elaborately decorated wheeled floats that each neighborhood outfits on such occasions. However, we were able to see several of them up close as neighbors gathered to assempled their entry in the festive parade. We even watched and heard several young women playing traditional flutes as they practiced the music that would accompany the floats as they maneuvered through town on the shoulders of young devotees.
Here are some examples of what we witnessed:
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Ted surprised us by opting unexpectedly to undertake a sake tasting at one of Takayama's famous breweries.
Looking for a nice spot for lunch, we happened across a classy French restaurant offering various dishes prepared with Hida beef, some of the best in Japan. We decided to opt in to yet another fiftieth wedding anniversary celebration (since that morning we had FaceTimed with others doing the same over a fancy dinner in Oak Park). The experience proved one of the gastronomic highlights of the trip so far!
Still more serendipity played into our day when it turned out that our travels to Kanazawa took us first to Toyama where we changed trains - and were able to ride from there to Kanazawa on the brand new Hokuriku Shinkansen "bullet train" which just began service in March 2015!
And to top it all off we wiitnessed a full eclipse of the moon right after we finished our yummy ramen supper in the brand spanking new Kanazawa train station.
Hurray for the unexpected!
And I will leave you now with a little image slideshow featuring various hanging cloth noren seen in Takayama, examples from my image-taking assignment for the day. Noren displayed outside a shop indicate that the business is open while also providing useful advertising and some modicum of privacy from passers-by on the street. They frequently strike me as works of art as well.
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