I'm currently stalking the JAL international flight page. I was looking for flights to Canada in March, all of which are totally expensive, and JAL had the best deal two days ago at around ¥123 000. I didn't snatch it up because I was trying to decide if leaving from Nagoya would work out. When I went back to get the ticket, it had gone up to ¥155 000. I decided to leave it and see what happened as I've had luck with that in the past. Since then prices I have been quoted for the exact same flight have ranged from ¥166 000 to the current ¥550 000.

There is a strong possibility that I will ditch the plans for Canada and go to Indonesia instead. I hear it's nice.

I promise I will get around to Myanmar, but it's a bigger task, and so we'll start with Takayama.

It took six hours to get there by local train. I think taking the express doesn't shave too much time off of that, but hoo boy was that a long train ride. It didn't help that the last four hours were all on the same very slow train. On the plus side, it was pretty much deserted so I had lots of space to stretch out in. When I first looked at the train schedule online, I didn't really check to see how often the local train runs, which is not a mistake I will be making again, because it turns out the local train only runs a few times a day and the majority of the trains are the expresses. As a result, I didn't get into Takayama until after 8 pm, which normally would not have been so bad, but it turns out that most of the restaurants are closed by then. Luckily there were a few ramen shops still open, because after a six hour train ride I was pretty hungry. I walked into an open one next to my hotel and was informed that they only had one type of ramen still available (luckily it was the local version, and it was very tasty, although if I'm being honest I have no idea how it differed from normal ramen) and then she closed up immediately after I left.

I walked around for a bit but everything was dark and it was cold so I decided to have an early night. The next morning I stopped by at a cafe Andy had told me about (he and his parents had just been up in Takayama the week before so he had lots of mostly helpful but rather vague advice) and had a very tasty cheese toast for breakfast. The cafe itself was delightful, that is one thing Hamamatsu is missing. Or at least something that I've never really found here, as most cafes seem to be chains and not very atmospheric. Andy had told me about an interesting English-based tour they went on where they learned about some of the history of Takayama and then concluded in a sake brewery, but he'd misremembered the name so I hadn't been able to look them up beforehand. I did find them pretty quickly (when I saw the sign I immediately connected it with the wrong name he'd given me) but unfortunately they only do one tour a day and it starts at 9 am, and I hadn't exactly bounded out of bed all that early. So I decided to walk around by myself.

The main attraction in Takayama is a small section of town where historical houses and shops have been preserved. It's lovely but you can really only wander up and down the streets so often. Most of them have been converted into shops selling Japanese trinkets. I wanted to go for a bit of a walk in the woods/park but when I walked up to the area I couldn't find any trails. I suspect they are closed in winter, but at least I got a nice view of the town from on top of the hill.

There were a couple of museums in town. I went to one at a temple and looked at some of the famous festival floats they have on display, then to a small art museum that only exhibits work by Kiyoshi Yamashita. Most of his work was done by tearing up small bits of paper and I really loved his fireworks pictures. I was not entirely clear on WHY there was a museum in Takayama devoted to him...he was a wandering artist during WWII so possibly he ended up in Takayama for a while. But then, this is a country that has a completely random museum devoted to Le Petit Prince in Hakone, so maybe they just liked his work.

By this point I was feeling peckish as I'd made the decision to skip lunch as I would have to have an early dinner (unless I wanted more ramen) and my feet were hurting from all the walking so I decided to go have a drink and a snack. The first place I stopped at advertised hot strawberry juice and I decided I had to try it. It was actually very nice. It reminded me a lot of amazake in terms of texture. Then I found a really amazing little cafe, where they brought out an entire pot of tea rather than just a glass, with leaves instead of a tea bag, a timer so I'd know when it had steeped enough, beautiful china and an adorable little silver strainer, plus a tea cozy to keep the whole thing warm. I was in tea heaven. I wanted to sit and sip tea forever there but they were closing at five so I had to get up and move on.

For dinner I finally had a chance to try the famous Hida beef. It is similar to the more famous Kobe beef, and actually might be exactly the same thing, just from a different region. It was accordingly very, very expensive, but correspondingly delicious.

And then everything shut down and I took my poor aching feet back to the hotel.

The next day I joined a bus tour to Shirakawa. The ride takes about an hour and the scenery, when you are not going through tunnels, is lovely. There were nine of us on the bus representing six different countries and four continents. The guide gave us a little lecture about Shirakawa on the way there, then we stopped at the viewpoint for pictures and continued on to the town where we could walk around for an hour and a half. People still live in the village but there were a couple of houses that were open to the public. The guide advised us that really, they are all the same inside, so it doesn't make sense to pay to see more than one. I walked around for a bit and then after an hour it started to rain. Snow would have been nicer but at least I'd come prepared with an umbrella. On the way back to Takayama the rain changed to snow. That and the gorgeous mountain views almost made me miss a nice proper winter, but I have to admit, I'm happy now that I'm back in Hamamatsu and it is 10C outdoors and sunny.

Lunch was more tasty but expensive beef and then I had several hours to kill until the next local train. I thought about doing some more sightseeing  but really, I'd seen pretty much everything by that point, so I went back to the first cafe and drank tea and read my book until it was time to go to the station.

The juhachi kippu ticket was definitely a good investment, even though I didn't get to use it for all five days. Taking the local trains on the four trips I did would have cost me double what I paid for the ticket, and taking the express/shinkansens would have quadrupled the cost. It's definitely a good way to get around the country as long as you have the time. I'd do it again if I ever manage to have time off during the eligible period, but I was exceedingly happy to take the shinkansen back from Tokyo yesterday.

Today is my last day off before returning to work and I really do have to get back into normal everyday life. I should be going to the gym (all that train riding did not exactly counteract all the holiday food) but I have four trips worth of unpacking detritus to deal with and a freezer to start filling with food, so I think today will be a chore kind of day. Woot.

I've been home for about 24 hours now. I've done as much laundry as I could hang up, unpacked, packed a different bag for tomorrow's trip to Takayama, and been to the school to take down the Christmas decorations. Not too bad, I guess.

I will get further into my Myanmar trip once I get back next weekend (after Takayama, I am coming back for one day of work at the high school and then it is off to Tokyo to say hi to Andy, where we will both flop on the couch, exhausted and broke.), so for now, just a few thoughts.

I was very proud of myself for packing so lightly. Everything fit into my gym backpack and weighed less than 8 kg. As it turns out, I could have been a little less efficient, as Bagan got rather chilly in the early mornings and Inle Lake was downright freezing until the fog burned off, and even then if you were out on the lake it was still chilly. A long sleeved tee or two would have been really handy. If nothing else, I could have lent one to Pauline, who ended up wearing pretty much the same outfit the entire trip, as she is a tropical hothouse flower and can't take the cold at all. I mostly just shivered until the sun came up.

Money wasn't really an issue. We were able to use kyat everywhere so I didn't really need the smaller dollar denominations. I kept my dollars pristine in a very classy homemade cardboard envelope and didn't have any problems exchanging them at the bank.

South-east Asian traffic in general is known for being an interesting and enlivening experience. Myanmar's special take on this is to import all of their cars from Japan (and buses, too. Apparently Myanmar is where old Japanese buses go to die), so they have right-hand steering. Just to make things interesting, they also drive on the right hand side of the road. This makes passing other vehicles on narrow two way roads especially fun. They employ their horns a lot, not in a road rage sort of way, but as a warning. It wasn't so bad in Yangon because they have multi-lane streets, but once you get out in the sticks the highways are about the width of a one way street or even largish sidewalk.

The food was alright but we seemed to end up eating a lot of Chinese food. I think in terms of cuisine, I preferred Laos food. It was usually pretty good, though, and really cheap, and there were all kinds of tasty fresh fruit juices, so I was in no danger of starving.

The people were all really friendly and seemed genuinely glad to see tourists. There wasn't really a sense of being fleeced like you can get in Vietnam or Thailand, where tourists are often seen as money machines. The shopkeepers haven't perfected the art of the hard sell, either, which made browsing a lot more pleasant. I didn't do much shopping, since I only had my small bag, but there was some really beautiful laquerware. If I ever become really rich I plan to do a shopping tour of SEAsia and buy all the things I've only been able to look at from afar. I did end up paying far too much for a silver (possibly) bracelet, but it had elephants on it. I also got a sarong with elephants on it and am tempted to wear the whole ensemble to work one day next summer along with my elephant necklace from Thailand. It will be a truly fabulous outfit.

And now I have to paint my nails and catch up on Doctor Who and Sherlock before heading off to the snow and cold tomorrow. Busy busy!