Japan day 6 - Takayama

Place:

 - Zenkoji Temple located in Takayama.

Here we took the shinkansen to change places to sleep. The Shinkansen is a high-speed train in Japan. You only have 15 seconds to get on the train! We were told to rush in and put our suitcases on a seat, and when everyone in the group was inside we could put our suitcases down where there was room. On this train you could eat food, candy and drink, that was also on the train. On the way, we saw Mount Fuji in the window while we were driving. We stopped in the Unesco World Heritage Town of Takyama, where we were going to sleep in the temple zenkoji. Here, almost all the girls were put in the same room, with 9 mattresses right next to each other across the floor. It was dense air here, so my asthma struggled a bit. 

PICTURES FROM THE TEMPLE

After we had checked in and sorted ourselves out, we went to a sake tasting, which was in a shop where they sold alcohol. We sat down at a table inside the venue and were served a shot glass of sake that contained 60% and 70%. It tasted pure home-roasted alcohol, but a little milder than the one in Norway. Tasted bad anyway.

After the sake tasting, we looked around the market a bit, and when I felt ready I went back to the temple.

We then went together to a restaurant that had something different, they had hotpot if we wanted this or ready-made meals. Those at the same table as me, and myself did not understand how to order, or get the waiters to come until some time had passed. It turned out that you had to press a button on the wall to order. We ordered meat and side dishes, but only got the side dishes as they had forgotten the meat. We only paid for what we had been served on the table. Disappointing. 

After this we had two choices, we could either go to the Onsen, which are the hot springs in Japan, and bathing facilities, with accommodation linked to these. Here you have to bathe naked together with others. The second was archery, here we could learn how to shoot with an arrow and bow at a glance, from a professional archer. 

Well, I didn't want to swim naked with others, so it was archery because it seemed like fun. But unfortunately my asthma struck again so I had to go home to the temple. 

All in all a perfectly okay day as we didn't get all the food at the restaurant because they forgot and my asthma ruined it for me once again by not being able to join archery among other things. What made up for it were the souvenir shops I got to look into, sake tasting, even though I don't like sake, and simply nice people that I chatted with when I rested a bit in the temple.