Saying good bye to Shirakawa-go

October 4, 2012 –

Good morning!  Time for breakfast!  I suggest that we eat our breakfast as we're not sure where we'll be at lunch time.  

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Uh oh.  It's raining….I wonder if this is the result of the typhoons we've been hearing about.  Some friends traveling to Tokyo had a little trouble getting there.  Oh my. It's not letting up either.  Oh NO!!!!  It looks like we'll have to walk in the rain to the bus station.

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Thankfully we brought garbage bags to attempt to keep our backpacks mostly dry and THANK HEAVENS we brought our rain jackets with us!  So, we weren't completely soaked…but close.  Sadly, the coffee shop we stopped at the other day wasn't open early enough for us to enjoy a cup of coffee before heading to the station.

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At the bus station we waited inside this tiny locker, storage room that showed a video about some festival (it looked like it was filmed in Takayama) which looped over and over and over again.  

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Cold and wet.  Not an ideal combination.  Our shoes and socks are soaked.  Thankfully Mark and Annika found a vending machine that spits out hot drinks.  

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Our little haven.

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The rain stopped every once in a while and let the sun shine for a few minutes.

Well, our bus is here!  We're heading to Kyoto today via two stops- a bus to Takayama, a train to Nagoya and then the bullet train to Kyoto!