Today was pretty rough. Started off by rising early and catching a bus to the train station, locating a nearby post office, and shipping my pack of goodies back to Mujib (who I had called beforehand to ensure it was OK). Total shipping cost was around 5,000 yen!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Gifu was my choice for my next stop, as Nagoya (my original destination) was booked solid. No idea why it\u2019s so busy – according to my guidebook, there\u2019s nothing really all that spectacular there. I took the bullet train from Kyoto to Nagoya, then a normal train to Gifu (35 minutes). I arrived in GIFU around 11am, and browsed around until 3pm looking at sights. I didn\u2019t figure that finding the hostel would be difficult (hah!).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Around 3pm, I decided to go to the hostel, and tried to take the advice of the guidebook, “Take the Streetcar for 10 minutes”. Naturally the streetcars weren\u2019t running when I needed them, so I resorted to “old reliable”, the same trick I used in Hiroshima when I didn\u2019t feel like taking streetcars – in other words, following the streetcar tracks on foot. I followed the tracks for 5km or so (with my 50lb backpack) , without finding the correct turn to head for the hostel. I then decided to try guidebook suggestion #2 “You can also take the ropeway from Gifu Park”. I headed for the park (at least another 15km of walking!), and was about to buy a ticket when I found out that you could no longer get to the hostel from the top of the ropeway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I suppose I should explain here, Gifu Youth Hostel is located on the top of a mountain. You get a rather nice view of the city, but it\u2019s not easy to get to!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I eventually found the necessary path (another 2km of walking, and a bus), and hiked up the “treacherous, steep, slippery”, and generally grueling mountain path. I was drenched in sweat when I arrived at the hostel 20 minutes later. Grabbed dinner, and attempted to make reservations at Awara-Onsen (Awara Hot-springs). I figured that I had definitely earned myself a good soak in the hot-springs, and my first choice (Kanazawa) was booked solid. I didn\u2019t understand the response that the Awara hostel gave me (an old lady who talked fast was on the other end of the line), and my phone-card ran out before I could get more information (and I didn\u2019t have any cash on me for the phone). I decided that I\u2019d just “wing it”, and hope the hostel had some space free when I got there. Supper was quite nice, however all things considered, I still preferred Hiroshima or Kyoto.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Today was pretty rough. Started off by rising early and catching a bus to the train station, locating a nearby post office, and shipping my pack of goodies back to Mujib (who I had called beforehand to ensure it was OK). Total shipping cost was around 5,000 yen! Gifu was my choice for my next […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.senkou.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.senkou.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.senkou.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.senkou.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.senkou.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.senkou.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":52,"href":"https:\/\/www.senkou.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51\/revisions\/52"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.senkou.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.senkou.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.senkou.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}