27 March 2026

We woke early to a beautiful clear sunny morning with snow visible on the mountain ranges in the distance. On the bus and on our way at 8.50am. First stop was Shiragawago village which is a traditional old style village in the mountains of Central Japan. The village is one of only 2 traditional villages that remain. It must be incredibly hard there in the winter. The houses all have ladders to access the top storey in the winter when the snow is too deep to get in the lower level. Most houses also seemed to have their own snowplows. Heating is from the cooking fire with the smoke passing through the thatch roof to help melt the snow.
We spent a couple of hours wandering the village and enjoyed morning tea in a little cafe before boarding the bus once again. There was a delay of half an hour while a search party was despatched to find Denise who somehow managed to get herself lost. We then continued on to Kanazawa where we wandered around the Geisha district and then onto our hotel for the night where our hotel room had a massage chair.
For dinner that night we joined several of the group at a local restaurant and afterwards at a bar for refreshments.Read more