Shirakawa-go

October 2, 2012-

Here are some photos taken from our stroll around the town.  We didn't have a purpose or a goal…we just wanted to see what we could see and return back to the inn when we were done.

Check out the water chanel flowing next to the road:

Those fish are bigger than I'd expected! I wonder if they'd eat your hand if you stuck it in there! LOL!

eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeek:

And monster spiders and spiderwebs EVERYWHERE!!!

Lots of pretty buildings with thatched roofs and lovely flower gardens.

fantastic drinks cooler!

chilled tomatoes, anyone???

Uh….where are we????

Thank goodness for the sign! (actually, we weren't lost at all. It's hard to get lost when you're just wandering!)

I think we'll go up the hill…on the road just ahead of us.  Let's go check out what's at the top!

The view from the top:

We saw bus load after bus load of students stopping here to have their class photos taken at the top.  

What is this lovely flower? Spotted it at the top next to the railing.

Heading back down the hill… We just saw what looked to be a grocery store so we're going to pop in and see what they have!

Want some Country Ma'am cookies???? Not too bad for a store bought cookie….it's a box full of soft chocolate chip cookies.  The girls got a box of Pocky sticks to share.  Happy girls!!!!

We bumped into more students down below.  Some were inquisitive of us obvious foreigners and asked us questions.  One group wanted to pose with us for photos.  They were very sweet and polite.

And one of the chaperones for one of the many school groups kindly took our family photo:

Aren't these some of the coolest buildings you've seen???  I've only seen such places in books or movies.  

We heard from the lady at the inn that there is an onsen (I think that's the Japanese word for hot spring) here in Shirakawa-go.  So, we went searching for it….and sure enough we found it!  It's not in one of the interesting thatched roof buildings but it is next to this gorgeous looking river.  The lady at the inn also said she had a coupon that gets us a discounted rate at the onsen.  Hmmm….I think we'll wait until we get that coupon as when we added up everything (entrance fee, towel rental, locker rental) bathing here is kind of pricey.  We'll come back tomorrow, okay????

Do you see the white bird sitting on the rock in the river? Is that a crane or heron? Or is it none-of-the-above?

Doing a little window shopping:

This poor guy!!!! He works so hard sawing and sawing and sawing but he never gets anywhere!

One shop had a few old fashioned toys to play with:

Catching the ball isn't as easy as it looks!

Lots of beautiful flowers!  I took waaaaaaaay too many photos of flowers. 

Another little shop:

And here's a coffee shop!  

Check out the cute halloween decorations in front of the shop. This was a great little shop- they had nice coffee and FREE wifi! Woo hoo!!!!!!!

We're heading back to the inn but let's take a quick look around this temple looking thingy:

Any idea what these tags are about???

Okay, now it's really time to walk back to the inn:

We're going to have some down-time now…read some books and write post cards while waiting for the dinner to be served.  Come back and we'll have dinner together, okay????

PS Whoops!!!!  I was going to pick my ten favorite photos from this walk and post those.  Ummm…apparently I got carried away!!!!