- Another travel day! Had another delightful buffet breakfast at the hotel, checked out and headed back to Kanazawa Station and their giant crazy dome.
- Took around a three hour bus ride up into the Japanese alps. The views as we got further and further into the mountains was just breathtaking.
- When we arrived at our hotel in the tiny village of Gokayama, the snow was piled high besides the road, towering over both of us.
- We wandered around the hotel looking for the main entrance, managed to find the back door and saw a few live chickens inside. Promising for dinner later tonight, but not what we were looking for!
- Eventually found the front entrance and popped in. It was deserted. After waiting around for a while, someone came by to let us know that check-in wasn’t possible for a while, and that there wasn’t anywhere around to find some lunch. Uh oh, had a moment of thinking we were going to be standing in the snow hungry for a few hours. Wish we’d grabbed some snacks for the bus!
- Instead, MBW offered to stay with the luggage in the warmth of the lobby while I set off solo to the next village over, Suganuma, where there was a better chance of finding something to eat.
- Started trekking there, but it quickly became clear that the path was both pretty steep and icy and passed through a very dark tunnel, designed for vehicles. Re-thought my options and went back to the stop where the bus dropped us off, hoping there would be other buses passing through.
- Eventually one came and picked me up, and by Googling the name, was able to find its route and timetable. Was going to Suganuma, luckily, and would be heading back once an hour.
- Suganuma was amazing! Wish I’d brought more camera options, but luckily had my GRIII with me for some shots.
- Eventually found the one restaurant and luckily, they had A takeaway option – Gohei Mochi with a walnut miso sauce. I grabbed a couple of those and some packaged souvenir cookies for Mel and had a hot udon to warm up. It was filled with tiny, but entire tiny prawns, so it had a weird crunchy, sharp texture. The warmth really helped though!
- Walked back up a hill to the villages bus stop to get the bus back with our sustenance. In the 25-ish minutes waiting on the bus, a few funny things happened:
- There was no phone reception in the village, so I could not only not tell MBW what was going on, I also couldn’t look up the bus timetable. So the wait was an unknowable length of time, seeing the bus was a relief.
- A giant yellow snowplow came through to help clear the road down to the village – it was scooping up snow from the road and shooting it out the roof off to the side of the road. An unfortunate couple happened to be walking on the side of the road and the driver must not have seen them….
- When the couple made it to the bus stop, they stood for a while trying to take a selfie with the village in the background. After it was clear they were struggling with it a little, I offered to take their photo.
- Made it back to the hotel to find that the hotel staff had let MBW up to the room, so she was at least comfortable and warm. The mochi was gratefully received, and the room had facilities for making a hot cup of green tea which really helped.
- Dinner was included with our meal, and was held in their tiny dining room, set up like a small bar. It was really cool, lots of local ingredients! Had grilled fish, local mushrooms, local veggie tempura, and the highlight – bear stew!
- Bear…. didn’t really taste like anything? Wasn’t bad, but not very flavourful from what we can tell. But how many people can say they ate bear in the Japanese alps?
- Full, tired but warm, we turned in for the night.
