Takayama under the rain

Takayama is a small touristic town
It has a lot of old houses

And inside of course a lot of souvenir shops

You know Kobe beef, but there this is hida beef, almost the same, very fat!
I had it in a bbq, delicious, but so much for me alone :-)

The ball on the top indicates this is a sake shop, as well as the mole

This was a shop dedicated to rabbits, hundreds of them!!!

a welcome cat

And this is where sake is transported

Nice view of the river with some red leave

 and with the red bridge

a nice lantern

one of the lord of the city

And the speciality here, the hida beef is everywhere even on sushis!!!

This mall one looks so happy, he is sitting on a fish actually :-)

And these are the 2 strange pictures  on the bridge

I found them so cool!

ahhh it was raining right?????

But still the try is amazing!

Ahhh he has put his rain coat :-)

Me in my yukata relaxing after the day

Kiso Valley

I went with a friend to Kiso Valley in the Japanese alps.
This is the old post way between Kyoto and the rest of Japan.
Before starting our 8 kms lunch :-)
Ramune, a limonade, where you press a ball inside and it makes bubbles

Then the speciality of the region soba, noodles, mine with yam

And for a dessert sweet rice balls
With full stomach direction the path

This is the beginning, here people dry persimmons

And this is the start of the road with a beautiful 25 degrees at least, just perfect

Beautiful sceneries but ...

there are bears be careful!!!
Not seen a single one but we saw monkeys!

Autumn is starting so we can see some amazing red trees

Old lady drying some sweet potatoes

And golden tree

A small stop on the way with free tea and sweets

And a great Japanese song

After that back on the path

Again some golden leaves, not so many so far, because this is still very hot

And this is everywhere to ring to scare the bears. I think that they are more annoyed by everybody doing that than scared...

Here the path with the stones, please watch your step!

And finally the arrival, after 3 hours up and down and hurting legs!

Then direction the hotel, with onsen please and free ramen in the night. Oh my god everybody is eating ramen in pyjama and we are not, such a terrible mistake

Ouf repaired, direction onsen :-)
ps: so sexy by the way !!!!

Nara and Kyoto

Nara was the former-former capital of Japan.
There you can see a lot of temples, Shintoist and Buddhist I think

This is a priest doing... Actually I don't know...

But what makes Nara very nice is that there are dears in liberty
They are everywhere, you can give them some cookies
they are so cute!

One of the temple

And this cute Bambi waiting for food

And in one of the main temple you have a giant Buddha

These are heads of protecting demons

And this one is an old Buddha

As I said you can feed them and for the nicest ones you can even touch them!

And on the way back we had the famous Pocky!

and these ones have pumpkin taste (not bad), yes this is halloween soon!

The next day was the visit of Kyoto, with first the Nijo castle

Beautiful decorations on the door

And then the amazing Kinkakuji temple, with it's golden pagoda

After a small visit of the kiyomizu temple

But especially the shopping streets where you can try a lot of cakes!
And you can see many people in kimono

Talking about kimono we were very lucky to see many Geishas in Gion!
But you have to be quick they disappear in one second

And finally the Kyoto tower and now dodo (sleep well I am exhausted!)