It was with great excitement and anticipation that I awoke this morning, only to have it dashed rather soggily as I discovered it was raining rather excessively. Festival fail. Unfortunately, this meant that the festival was pretty much canceled. It seems odd to me that for something like the third biggest festival in Japan, they wouldn’t have some sort of wet-weather plan, particularly when it occurs annually in October.

It was 12:30 pm by the time we reached Takayama, and what would be my final stop on my whirlwind Japanese tour. J-Hoppers Hostel was quite easy to find, just a 3 minute walk from the station. I was too early to check-in, so I left my luggage and headed off for ‘Old Town’. I’d been to Takayama before, but I had always enjoyed the traditional merchant houses (dating back to the Edo period, 1600s), with shops selling artisan pottery and wood carvings, as well as, of course, the ubiquitous sarubobo doll.

My plan for the day was really to hit the highlights of Kanazawa. After answering a barrage of emails regarding my recruitment for my thesis follow-up study I’m running when I get back to Vancouver, I headed out the door. I went back to the station to grab my bus pass for the day and hopped on the Loop bus bound for Kenrokuen. The town is fairly compact (it only takes about 40 minutes to do the entire loop), so I was soon off the bus and up the steps to the gardens.

It wasn’t long before I was rolling into Kanazawa. I disembarked and got my bearings, heading off to find my guest house. While I was proud at having found it so easily, tucked away as it is, I was soon crestfallen upon discovering it was closed for cleaning from 12 – 3 pm, which meant I was stuck with my luggage for the next 2 hours. I’d known that they wanted you out in the afternoon to clean (most hostels do), but I suppose I didn’t anticipate them to be closed and locked completely.

Today was my only full day in Kyoto, and thankfully it was a beauty. The morning sun beaming brightly I headed out just before 9 am, making a quick stop at a nearby coffee shop for an egg sandwich for breakfast. Kyoto was the city I had spent the most time in on my last visit, and I managed to hit a lot of the major sites. Thus, my plan for the morning was to see a few shrines that were a little more off the beaten path.

What a day! My somewhat impulsive decision to head to Hiroshima for the day lead to my heading out the door at quarter to 8 to catch an 8:20 shinkansen. I had originally wanted to try and squeeze in two or three days in Hiroshima when I begun planning this trip, but found there really wasn’t enough time. However, the joy of having a JR pass is that you can impulsively decide to hop on a bullet train for the under 2-hour ride down south.

We eventually rolled into the Tobu Nikko train station just before 9:30 am. In the interest of not wearing myself out before the day had even started, I opted to just grab a taxi for the 6 minute drive to the Turtle Inn. I left my luggage, and my kindly hostess outlined the various highlights on a map for me, including pointing out where various convenience stores and post offices were which is handy. Map in hand, I pared down to just my tiny purse and camera and headed off to the shrines.

The sun was just peeking out as I headed into the station bound for the National Art Center. I chanced upon an add advertising a new exhibition opening today on Van Gogh, and I couldn’t pass up the opportunity. I don’t foresee my going to Amsterdam in the next little while, so this would certainly tide me over until then. Bit of a pricier fee then the other museums I’d been to at $12, but I was soon making my way through this soaring building of metal and glass and bizarre floating concrete cones.

Alas, 6am yet again for me, but it did give me a good opportunity to chat with D in Chicago as I got ready for the day. Unfortunately, the rain had not abated since yesterday, but I was determined to brave the inclement weather. On the docket for the morning was Ikebukuro—I’d read something about food theme parks in Namjatown, and I’m always game for investigating such things. Umbrella in hand, I made the walk down to Ueno Station, popping into a bakery there for a quick breakfast of croissants and a donut. I hopped onto a JR local train bound for Ikebukuro, about a 15 minute ride away.

It was another early morning, as my body seems convinced that 6 am is a perfectly acceptable wake-up time. The early hour did work out well for chatting with family on the other continent, so I was able to catch up during my morning surfage. Due to my lack of dinner last evening, I was fabulously hungry, so I popped down to the front desk and invested in a quality breakfast snack–Pocky!