Shirakawago and Tateyama Alpine Route

Signed up for a 2D1N yokoso tour to Shirakawago and Tateyama Alpine Route trip.

On the first day, we depart from Shinjuku to Takayama first. It was also known as Little Kyoto. But then, I find it to be a far cry from the sennenzaka and ninenzaka of Kyoto. Maybe becoz it's the golden week, most of the shops were closed. By the time we reached Shirakawago, it's 4pm and we only have an hr to explore the place before it closed at 5pm.

Shirakawago feels kinda boring to me...just a bunch of old houses with thatched roof. Maybe I juz can't appreciate it's beauty.

After that, we checked into Toyama Manten Hotel which was booked by the tour. It was a decent clean hotel within walking distance to Toyama Station. 

For dinner, it's free and easy time. Hubby suggested trying out Ramen Iroha located at CiC which is about 10-15 mins walk to from the Hotel. Actually, CiC was just opp from Toyama Station. The ramen was delicious and to my surprise, there was a Diaso beside it. Think that was the highlight of the day for me....haha

After browsing Diaso and managing buying a few tops from the departmental stores, that's the end of Day 1.

Day 2: Woke up really early and had a simple breakfast provided by the hotel.

We started at Tateyama Station first and end the route at Ogizawa.

From tateyama station, we took the cable car to bijodaira. I felt like squashed sardines while they keep packing ppl into this tiny cable car. Is it even allowed? Maybe Japanese ppl are used to being packed like sardines everyday... 

 

The bus journey from Bijodaira to Murodo was windy and uncomfortable as we were seated in the center from a pull out seat attached to the chair on the right. Another japanese innovative idea to squeeze more ppl into the bus.

Finally arrived at our destination, the iconic ice wall! 

It's about -4 degree here.....cold.....

Can't resist plucking out a chuck of ice to play with. Actually it dropped off when I tried to climb on some ice.

View on top of Mt Tateyama...awesome....

Riding the ropeway down the mountain from Daikanbo to Kurobeko. As usual, it was a squeeze and I couldnt see any view at all....

The Kurobe dam...which sadly did not have any water flowing out as the dam only start operating in summer. 

Nevertheless, the scenery was nice and tranquil....but too cold for me as it started raining.

Finally, we ended the tour at around 3pm and board the bus back to Shinjuku. Ordered a bento to eat as dinner on the bus.

It looked so nice that I can't bear to start eating it! This concludes the end of my 2D1N yokoso tour. As an after thought, I just wana share the fact the Japanese ppl are v punctual ppl. Most of the ppl on my tour were japanese elderly folks. When the guide told us to take a 15 mins toilet break at a highway stop station, most ppl will be back on the bus by 10mins even though they can walk around the stores selling all sorts of foodstuff and souvenirs. That's why I feel like I'm constantly in a rush. Also, Japanese ppl bag their own trash and carry it around with them. Our tour guide actually told us to bring back our lunch bento box after we finished eating at Murodo, which means they expect me to carry the rubbish all thru the alpine route and pass it back to them at the end of the trip?! Of course I din not coz my hands were tied and I just dump it into an appropriate trashcan at a resting area in Murodo. Btw, Japanese ppl separate their rubbish into pet bottle, cans, glass and combustibles. Also, no liquids are supposed to be inside the pet bottles when u disposed them....which I dun understand why either.....

Anyway, after I finished eating my beautiful dinner bento, we separate the trash we had into the 4 different categories and proudly show it to our guide when she came to collect our empty bento boxes. But she gave us a stunned look and kinda gave a forced smile as she took our big bag of combustibles. It was later on that I realised that she only want to collect the empty bento boxes and not the rest of the rubbish along with it. It's because she passed us the bento boxes so she will collect back the bento boxes, whereas the other combustibles like milk packet etc...were stuffs we bought ourselves along the trip so we were EXPECTED to throw our own rubbish by ourselves....

To me, rubbish is just rubbish. In Singapore, we dun separate our rubbish the way the Japanese do. I simply have to salute them for taking the effort to do that.