Takayama, by bus, on a holiday.

This Monday was yet another holiday, Sports Day. I used the three day vacation in order to get my butt out of Tokyo/Yokohama again. This time, I went to Hida Takayama, in Gifu-ken.

Now, you can go to Google and get hundreds of sites about Takayama and the old school Japanese houses that are there. I am sure that most of those reports would be much better than anything I'm gonna whip up right now too. So. I'm not going to waste your time. If you want information about Takayama, you know where to look.

Whoops.

I went to Takayama from Gifu on a bus. My reason for choosing this mode of transportation was because I'm cheap. Well. Now I understand why it's so inexpensive.

All roads heading away from Tokyo are crowded during holiday weekends.
Crowded. I'm talking, 8 hours to Takayama, when it normally takes like 5 hours or something like that. Luckily on the way there I left at 8am on Saturday (I tried to take a night bus out on Friday night but the buses were all full).

By the way. I stayed in a cool youth hostel called Tenshouji. It is a temple, with a lot of extra space.

The room I stayed in housed about 40 people. I've never seen so many futons...

Now where was I... Ah yeah...
On the way home though, I wasn't so lucky. My bus left from Takayama at 4:30pm. The bus driver apologized profusely the entire route back that the roads were super crowded so he was going to be late. We arrived at Shinjuku at 11:55.

Those of you who have lived in Japan know where this story is going. Even though Tokyo is one of those cities that never sleeps... the trains sure do. The last trains out of Tokyo are around 0:00, or 0:30, depending on the line you are using.

I made it out of Shinjuku to Shibuya where I need to change trains no problem. However I got to the platform at Shibuya only to see my train leave me in the dust just as I passed through the gate. Me and some other Japanese guys around all groaned in agony as the doors hissed shut. That's it. Last train.

Too bad for you.

Luckily there was one more train after that, but it didn't go all the way to my house. I then had to take a taxi from that station all the way to my house.

That set me back about 3000 yen. Ouch.

The trip itself wasn't that expensive though! Click below to see how it broke down.

Prices in Singapore Dollars...
just kidding. They're in Japanese yen. Heh.

ticket to shinjuku 150
bus round trip 11700
breakfast 409
lunch 800
body soap 150
toothbrush 50
toothpaste 100
room 2 nights + breakfast 6930
dinner 1937
dango 150
dango 60
memory for camera 2079
snack 700
hida village entrance 700
lunch 1700
fun 1200
snack 123
dinner 2000
snack 150
macha 300
museum 820
lunch 735
snack 273
train 160
taxi 2580

Total: 35956yen.
Less than 350 bucks! Hrm...
And, that taxi, and the memory for my camera are
just little added extras. They don't count! I should have
also rememberd to bring a tooth brush and stuff. So take
that out too if you want. Heh.

Posted by Harvey at October 15, 2002 08:56 AM