Alan had always wanted to do a road trip in Japan, so he was very excited when we picked up our rental minivan. We left Kyoto and drove just an hour north to Lake Biwa, Japan’s largest freshwater lake, for our first stop. We stayed at the beautiful Lake Biwa Marriott that included a lovely onsen for us to relax in the evening. Soaking in the onsen almost always guarantees an extra good night of deep sleep, especially when we’re sleeping on tatami beds!
The next morning, we drove to Biwako Valley and took the ropeway high up into the mountains for a magnificent view of the valley and lake. It literally felt like we were above the clouds looking down!
We were in the Shiga prefecture, known for its omi beef, one of the top three wagyu beefs of Japan. I found a famous restaurant call Tiffany in the town of Omihachiman for us to try, timing our arrival to be 1pm to beat the lunch crowd. No such luck though. The restaurant was packed even at 1pm and the waitlist was long, so we ended up waiting for an hour before we were finally seated at 2pm. We each ordered their steak course menu and while everything tasted delicious, I’m not sure it was really worth the hour long wait. The beef definitely wasn’t as good as what we had in Kyoto for my mom’s birthday.
Omihachiman is nicely preserved old merchant town in central Japan that has a lovely canal. We didn’t take a boat tour through the canal but found it just as satisfying to stroll through the streets surrounding the canal.
We left Omihachiman after catching a beautiful sunset there and made our way further north towards our next destination- Takayama. Around 2 hours into our drive, we were hungry and intended to find a conbini for a quick dinner, but Bridgette said she came across an udon shop on IG that looked really good. We did a search on google map and realized it wouldn’t require a big detour, so we decided to hit up that udon shop for a proper meal.
Arriving to the small town of Gujo, we found the udon shop on a quiet street where every other store was closed. We were welcomed into the near-empty shop by a nice, young Japanese man who spoke a bit of English. We learned that his name was Shota and he was the third generation owner who currently worked with his 80 something year old grandma to run the shop together. That night, he was the only one there which made him both the chef and the server. Still, he cooked us one of the best udons and chicken tempura we’ve ever had and also took the time to chat with us. We exchanged contacts, inviting him to visit us in San Francisco one day. (Spoiler alert, he did!) It is always so fun and interesting to meet and chat with locals along the way, and to see how some of the most random encounters can eventually blossom into beautiful friendships.
After the very fulfilling dinner, we continued our way and finally arrived to the Takayama Green Hotel where we would stay several nights. This hotel was a wonderful place to relax, as it included an on-site onsen, buffet breakfast, and kaiseki dinner. The best part about staying at onsen hotels is that you can wear the hotel-provided yukatas and slippers everywhere within the property!
Our hotel provided bikes for their guests to use, and being that we love getting around by bike, we jumped on the opportunity. We biked to to the nearby Hida Folk Village, an open air museum exhibiting over 30 traditional houses from the Hida region. These houses were built in the Edo period and were relocated to this village to create the museum in 1971. Some of the houses are open for touring, so we got to see the interiors as well.
Autumn foliage was getting more and more intense by that time, so we also had some fun with a mini photoshoot amongst the fall leaves!
