I sort of blew it this afternoon. After doing my “Morning Stroll” entry and showing Tracie photos of the town, I set out again in search of lunch. I made several mistakes. The first was that I got a later start than I should have. The second was that I forgot to bring along the English map of the town that I found previously. The third was that I decided that I could find my way around without it, and got lost as a result. Takayama is not a big city so there wasn’t particularly any danger of becoming lost in the strict sense of the word, but I did get sufficiently turned around that on at least two occasions when I did find a sign or other landmark that reoriented me, I was traveling at right angles to my intended direction.
My intent was to go to one of a couple of noodle restaurants mentioned in the guidebook provided by our tour agency. These were near the area I had been through previously on the way to and from the morning market. I thought I could return to the same area by a different route (thus exposing myself to other parts of town) by heading up a particular street and turning left when I reached the river. But something went awry and I never reached the restaurants, nor even the river. I ended up in a somewhat residential area that, while picturesque, was bereft of eateries.
It may bear mentioning at this point that when Tracie and I are exploring towns in foreign countries, she does the majority of the navigating. Neither of us have a particularly bad sense of direction, but her memory is better than mine.
By the time I had established some sense of where I was and returned to areas where I had been, all of the likely looking places to eat had closed for the afternoon. This left me in something of a caloric lurch. I was rather tired and quite hungry by then and certainly couldn’t wait to eat until 5:00, the time that a number of establishments opened for dinner. In the end I bought a couple of boxed things from a little place whose only English sinage consisted of the words “TAKE OUT”. With some frustration and a great deal of hunger I took them back to the hotel. One thing I thought chicken with sesame seeds, but it turned out to be walnuts with sesame seeds. I’m not wild about walnuts but they were pretty good. The other thing was several sushi-like rolls made from some sort of very thin crepe-like substance rather than the usual seaweed. They were quite tasty.
I sort of planned to go out again for dinner, but I never ended up feeling hungry enough to bother. I did see a very promising-looking sushi restaurant while I was wandering around but I seriously doubt that I could find my way back to it without a good deal of trial and error, and the day has already had enough trials and errors.
Nonetheless, I did take some photos. Duffy will notice several rain chains in them.
So, that’s it for Takayama. I’m sure that we didn’t see the best of it, but under the circumstances I made the best that I could. At least they sell products by Halls and Vicks here. Tomorrow morning we head for Kanazawa by “highway bus”.