Our first proper Japanese breakfast was in Koemon. Our usual fare was bread from different different kombini and coffee, this one involve rice and dishes. Very fulfilling breakfast but I think if I am to eat this much every day, no matter how much I walk will never walk those fat off.

Breakfast was a luxury set of hoba miso, seasoned omelet and some side dishes. I love miso from Hida prefecture.


Hoba miso is another local specialty of Hida district - miso with some vege grilled on a dried hoba leaf over fire. Apparently hoba leaf is magnolia leaf - that I googled from the net.

Our first stop for the day is Shiroyama Viewpoint, we were told that we could walk from Koemon on other seasons aside winter. the walking trail or short cut to the viewpoint is close during winter days. However, there's a bus ferrying people to the viewpoint from bus stop, from the opposite side of where we get off the bus from Takayama. Bus fare was 200 yen one way.

So, we crossed the bridge again to the bus stop. The snow shovelling car cleared some of the snow, but it was still rather thick. As we reached the other side, a lot of people were trying to clear the path to leading to their shop,


...or removing snow from roof.


We took the bus up to Shiroyama Viewpoint. Unfortunately, snow was great. So the view was blur.



We didn't linger long. It was snowing and cold, with blurry view (umm... pretty sure there is a better word but ...) but the next bus was in 30 mins. If I remember correctly, bus is every 30 mins. Haha.. this sounds stupid but we mis-read the time, in fact, we were hovering around the bus, waiting for last minute before boarding the bus. Next thing we know, the bus went off without us. = ="

As the next bus was in another 30 minutes, we thought we would have a little walk instead of staying put. Ermm.. the longer we walked, we thought we might as well walk back, but walking via the bus route.



Likewise I said, it was cold and snowing but the 3 of us, walked back to the village. And.. the shuttle bus did come but we continued walking. :P We even observed that there was 2 drivers, one nicer one who, from his expression can tell that he wanted to stop for us but he was going the other direction. He was the one who drove us up the viewpoint, while the other doesn't show any sign of stopping :p


Side note: To bring lappie or not to bring lappie....