Bus Tour 5

The next stop was 三町筋 (Sanmachi Suji) which is an edo which has kept the edo-period style street and architecture.

We walked to this shop called Le Midi, which is famous for their pudding!

Website: http://www.le-midi.jp/

We were provided with a walking map by the travel agency and I googled some of the spots on it before deciding that we should try this.

This place was highly recommended by reviewers.

The pudding were delicious. You top the caramel sauce yourself as it is provided right near the bench where you can sit and eat. I like how I get to control the amount of sauce that I want.

This pudding shop was next to the original restaurant which seemed to have high reviews on trip advisor.

We also walked into this small little shop that sells Japanese confectionery. We bought some to try and they were delicious. 

On the first day of the tour, the guide handed us a form that provided us with the opportunity ti order certain souvenirs through them. On the form was this some steamed beef buns and these croissants below too. 

I decided to order the bread to try and we got them today.

There were 2 different croissants, which were given to us warm. And they were surprisingly good! There a few others on the same bus who had ordered this too, which others had the steamed buns. 

I thought that it was interesting that the bus tour had this kind of services which enabled us to try something from a local store there.

Bus Tour 4

After breakfast, it was back onto the bus.

It was no longer snowing, but there was some snow left from the day before.

As you can see here at the temple that we visited, there were still lots of snow on the ground.

When we were there, some of the snow slipped from the roof. 

The priest who was in charge came out and gave us a tour. Sadly, mum and dad doesn't understand any of it.

Snow....slowly sliding off the roof.

The view along the way was nice. A rare right where everything looks white.

Next we arrived at Shokusai Ooji, where we had shabu-shabu hida beef.

Website: http://www.togeihida.co.jp

Interestingly, it was next to the kabutomushi museum.

Hida beef is supposed to be pretty famous too.

Honestly, I thought this meal was pretty normal.

Unfortunately for daddy, this must've been his worst meal this trip as he doesn't take beef.

Bus Tour 3

For this bus trip, we had to spend a night in Toyama and the tour placed us in APA Hotel Toyama.

The room is the usual single room that you get in most business hotel.

The room has a basic toilet and bath. It's nice that they have tiles instead of the usual pre-built unit walls.

The bed was comfortable and I slept well.

The hotel has a bath area in a separate building which is free for all the guests.

I decided to go and try it. It was definitely disappointing, one of the smallest and worst ones I've been to.

The tour also provided us with coupons for buffet dinner and breakfast! 

Food was good. For dinner we had all you can eat crab legs! 

I think our family took the least number of crab legs among all the guests. Others just piled their plate crab legs. I wonder if they actually finished everything. Some piled like 5-10 on their plates.

Their breakfast consists of the common selection that you get in most hotels. I do enjoy the pumpkin salad that they served! It's the first time I've seen it being served in a hotel buffet!

Overall, I enjoyed the food served an will be happy to return again.

Bus Tour 2

Can't get enough of the white scenery~

After the long bus ride, finally we arrive at Shirakawa-go.

It was snowing pretty heavily when we arrived.

Most people will cross over to the other side of this bridge to see the gassho-zukuri.

Instead, we went to the Gasshozukuri-Minkanen which of course, had a lot less tourists.

There you can enter a few of the gassho-zukuri which had exhibitions like these.

I'm not sure if it's because of the snow, but the surrounding view is amazing.

Also because, this area really had a lot less tourists, I was able to snap some nice pictures.

Lol, daddy busy with this phone!

Website: http://www.shirakawago-minkaen.jp/

It was very cold, but we had to take off our gloves to push the snap buttons on the phone lol.

A nice guard who was working there volunteered to take our pictures.

Highly recommend you to visit this site instead to avoid the crowds.

Some pics of the crowded looking bridge and the snowy mountains.

After about an hour here, we continued on our journey to another gassho-zukuri area.

As we were the only bus tour group there, we got to take some really nice pictures.

There are some shops there which you can buy things from.

I guess we were really lucky that it snowed because it allowed us to enjoy the snowy weather too.

I feel that the snow adds to the charm of this place.