Wednesday, 9 April 2008
Sitting down at breakfast the following morning I was surprised to notice that the people seating themselves at the next table were the Chinese couple with the tripod from Monday afternoon in Kanazawa. At the time we thought they were from Hong Kong, but as we exchanged pleasantries we learned that they were, in fact, from Melbourne and had spent most of the preceding fortnight based in Osaka and heading out to wherever the cherry-blossom was good each day. They were just doing a little loop through the countryside before heading home the following day.
It is, as has frequently been remarked, a small world.
And it seems to be shrinking.
Given our relatively loose schedule for the rest of the day we took our time packing and checking out, and still had two and a half hours to kill before catching the train for the next leg of the trip.
Having missed some serious photographic opportunities the day before, we retraced yesterday’s route in reverse, taking our time as we strolled through the morning markets and even doing a little sake-sampling. We ended up outside Takayama Jinya, where I overheard a couple of Americans discussing the lack of an English-speaking guide to the building in front of them, which they assumed to be a temple or something.
I did my best to encourage them to venture inside, despite the lack of English content, but they remained unconvinced and I wandered away wondering why you’d set out to walk around a strange town without even a map to guide you.