We caught the bus down to the Station at 10.00 and walked down to the
old town and crossing the river and came across further events in the Spring
Festival and we spent several hours walking around taking photos and the odd
cup of coffee. We did try some Yakitori which was quite expensive and really
not that good, bloody rip off actually.
The festival carried on with the carts standing around and you can
have your photo taken with the guys, Jennifer needed to be persuaded and hence
the result is here to see. The girls were playing a one or two note tune on
their recorders and the young men were banging wooden mallets against bells.
The puppet performance was quite good and it was done from the back of two
carts and was quite high up really with lots of strange noises being made.
By about lunchtime the events were slowing down for the day and so we
found a restaurant called Alice’s Place where we had large bento box containing
Tempura, and thinly sliced beef and oinions in a great sauce on rice and together
with Misu soup and for the two of us was Yen 3000 or around £ 18.00 and we were
quite stuffed as they say.
The pulling of carts and the banging of drums and bells and unholy
noises started up again and so we watched for a while but were getting a little
tired after so much walking and then we thought we would have a train ride up
to the town of Hida and when we got to the station it was totally packed out
with queues of people and baggage waiting for the next train. There was not a
Suica card entrance and rather than wait for what could be a long time to get a
ticket we gave up the idea and returned to the Hotel on the courtesy bus around
16.00.
Noel spent the rest of the evening on photos and blogging whilst Jennifer
checked out tomorrows route as we leave for the seaside City of Toyama for two
nights but will take a long route via the mountains to get there as we have
enough time and don’t need to go on expressways, should be great providing we don’t
get too lost.
I hear the popping of corks so must be time for a glass of wine and
some nuts, no dinner tonight as we are both still full from lunch.
