Hida Takayama (Japanese Alps)

Our first hitchhike experience:
We waited for approximately two hours next to the driveway that leads to Nagoya (our first station to get to the Japanese Alps, two and a half hours away from Shizuoka). The only one who picked us up were two security guys from the Highway patrol! They escorted us to the next Seven Eleven shop and asked us kindly but firmly to continue our hitchhiking from there and not from the interstate anymore.
We were not far from giving up when a nice but slightly timid couple saw our paper sign and decided to give us a ride to Nagoya. They couldn't speak a word of English but with the help of a Translation-app we managed to communicate.
Surprised by this act of kindness, we decided to continue our hitchhiking. The only problem was, we didn't know where the driveway to the Alps was, so we asked a taxi driver to show us the best spot. Unfortunately his spot wasn't the best and nobody picked us up. After waiting long hours, we abandoned our initial plan to hitchhike and finally took the bus.
Bottom line: Fun to experience but we decided that it isn't really our thing, because we neither have the required patience nor want to spend an endless amount of time next to a busy street.

So we arrived by bus in Hida Takayama where we stayed in a lovely Japanese Guesthouse, the cleanest and best organized hostel so far.
We explored the region by bicycle (that we rented in the Guesthouse). Hida Takayama offered some fine ancient temples, a 1300 year old ginkgo tree, a lot of hot springs and spas in the surroundings, and the Hida Minzoku Mura Folk village (an open air museum with more than 30 traditional farmhouses). We degusted different kind of Sake (but we still prefer the wine made out of grapes) and tried some of the famous local sweets (most of them made out of sugared red beans).

Furthermore the Hida region is very famous for its Hida-Wagyu ('Wa' means Japanese style and 'gyu' is a word for cattle or cow). The most famous Wagyu meat is probably the Kobe-beef, but it is not the only A-graded Wagyu beef from Japan. We chose a traditional restaurant where we tasted this extremely tender, juicy (and very expensive) Hida-beef and it fulfilled all our expectations. The intense marbled outward appearance makes it very distinctive and the taste can't be compared to the meat in Europe. This could be due to the fact that those 'first class' cattles in Japan have a much longer breeding time and they are not fed pasture grass or antibiotics.

We are looking forward to discover Kyoto, Japans most famous city.

Thanks to Ayaka and Yusuke for their 3 hours lift :)

In Japan, the capsule hotels are very popular among business people. In Takayama we had sort of a capsule bed, but fortunately a little bigger than the traditional ones.

It felt like walking through a Japanese film set.

The art of coffee decoration is also mastered by the Japanese baristi.

The entrance to this traditional temple is paved with stairs made out of whole blocks of stone.

Street art animation in Japanese style :)

There was a temple-road next to the main street which allowed us to do 'temple hopping' :)

In Japan, every corpse is burned before being buried therefore they don't need so much space on the cemeteries.

It was forbidden to step on this ancient temple bridge....

....unfortunately we didn't understand Japanese.

The temples in the Japanese Alps exude more peace and calm than those in the crowded city. Probably this is due to the quietful natural surrounding.

Tasting the Hida Beef on a table grill with a tasty Japanese Beer.

Yeay...

In the Folk Village of Takayama everything looks picturesque.

We tried another local specialty: Eating a freshly caught fish filled with plenty of baby eggs. This is what happens when you don't understand the Japanese signs on the menu card.