i love those village houses a lot, got those peaceful feeling

LOL, Nagoya took me 2 years to exploring it. Within this 2 year, Every Sat & Sun took train / Bus from Tokyo to Nagoya to complete my research.

I HATE CHU!!!!

Thanks for the info. I might need friends to go with me. Scare sesat dunno end up where hahahahaha

Wow that's really interesting. I was only at the city most of the time and one day at Kiso Valley. Where else in Nagoya do you recommend to visit? Especially places that are less touristy.

Inuyama , Expo Memorial Park + Linimo Train. I also basically get off every station in Nagoya. Explore every metro / train station in Nagoya, finding any interest food or stuff

Very interesting. These don't appear on the search result when you Google Nagoya. Thanks for the recommendation

Get off every station... that's the God-like level of exploration when you're there long enough to have covered all the major attractions! Looking forward to more sharing from you weeeeeee.

Yesssss 1 day is too limited. I had about 4 days in Nagoya and still not done exploring!

Shirakawa-Go is in the UNESCO World Heritage site it's one of the best place I've ever been. Definitely - the best season is Winter!!! In other times you can enjoy/ see different charm of the place, but without a doubt - Winter. Highly highly recommended.

Friends and I was there early Jan this year.

Day 1 - Shirakawa-Go. We arrived between 3-330pm and went out to play around 4pm after checking-in. It wasn't snowing. Whatever snow were there - a lot had been melted off by the locals to make it easy to walk.



Day 2 Pic 1- Went out of the gassho-zukuri/ minshuku between 8-830am (as breakfast was served at 7am, also took some time to pack up) and there was thick fog. It was snowing slightly, but the night before there were heavy snow and we were so happy & amazed by the scene before our eyes.



Day 2 Pic 2 - We stayed in the inner most part of ShirakawaGo village. Shirakawa-Go is huge and there are many different villages located in different parts of the 'mountain'/ area. Friend said this was the only place available as we did an adhoc trip, but I think we were lucky because it was so beautiful - beyond words. Staying at the innermost, although we had a long bus ride, was totally worth it.

We would see the mountain. And the snow were soft like cotton.



Day 2 Pic 3 - We must check out by 10am, and by 10, non-staying guests/ tourists will start to flood the place (rule is that, no tourists or guests from other area can come in before 10am), they can only access the village from 10am-3pm. Times other than those are reserved for the village's guests. It was sad that we had to leave so soon, as the enjoyment felt so short. I'll definitely return one day. If you ask why so short, only 1 night - it's because you can only stay 1 night in gassho zukuri. All these places are usually overbooked so in order to ensure no one hogs the accommodation, everyone is only allowed 1 night stay - unless you move to another minshuku/ village for another night.



Hope this inspires you to go one day

LOL, Nagoya took me 2 years to exploring it. Within this 2 year, Every Sat & Sun took train / Bus from Tokyo to Nagoya to complete my research.

yeap sure, i will do it this weekends 

When I was a student I did that when I have the luxury of time. Bought  "jyu hachi kippu" for about few thousand yen that allows you unlimited access to all JR trains in Japan. Since its so cheap, you can only take the local train and maybe some limited express. Use it to travel from Fukuoka to Tokyo to Nagano. I think traveling alone one way took me two days!  No way I can do it now cause sure will sakit buntut.

AHHHH!!! JEALOUSSSSS!!!    Gonna add Shirakawa-Go and Kiso Valley hike to my bucket list. In the meantime, gonna enjoy Nagoya/Kyoto/Osaka first this November.   
Perks of working in Japan. People like me just gonna visit Japan for a few days trip and back.
Yay!    Although google-ing adds to the enjoyment of planning a trip, having filtered/verified information or tips from other forumer make things easier. At least to me it feels more genuine coming from another forumer on a local forum. Benefited a lot from the 14 days Kansai itinerary in the 1st page by RegentCid.   

That's the seishun kippu right? I asked this forum and the group chat before, but it seemed like no one was familiar with it coz no reply hahaha.

We used the same ticket to get around Gifu from Nagoya to ShirakawaGo and back. It was a cheaper but also took some time coz like you said, only can board the Local or Limited Express.

Was it a planned trip or you just make the stops as you like? What about accommodation?

This is a seasonal ticket and you really need the time and patience. At that time my Nokia flip phone is the state of art and no such thing as GPS, google map etc. So I just buy the JR timetable book of the whole country. Damn thick yo. My plan was just start date, destination and end date. Last time student where got money. There are some night train like from Hiroshima to Osaka where you just need to pay extra 500yen to get a seat. Save one day of accommodation. Normally I will try to get to a big city so if I cannot find cheap accommodation, I just go to cyber cafe.

Those were the days......travelling on a budget.  I think I spend about 70K-80K yen for two weeks.

And luck too, to get the seishun kippu. We bought it on 31st Dec (last day haha!) coz we arrived in Nagoya on NY's eve. Damn kancheong. Rushed to the station and checked. Luckily they still have tickets

So you travelled alone for the trips back then? I remember you're no good with Japanese right? Surely its not easy going around, but I agree that's the fun part.

Going to be using the bus from tokyo to Kyoto when I'm there so we took the plunge to cancel out last night airbnb and planning to wing it and stay in a love hotel near shinjuku.

need recommendation for love hotel in shinjuku? i used it a lot 

yes please. one that speaks English and of course doesn't cost a bomb like that Bali themed one that costs 1k a night.

need recommendation for love hotel in shinjuku? i used it a lot 

used it a lot to sleep?
or used it a lot for the purpose that is not mentionable on family friendly forum?

yes please. one that speaks English and of course doesn't cost a bomb like that Bali themed one that costs 1k a night.

used it a lot to sleep?
or used it a lot for the purpose that is not mentionable on family friendly forum?

OK so the one I always use are hotel la pia and hotel the hotel, these both I can guarantee it's very clean and not so expensive, at least the hourly rates r one of the cheapest there depending on the theme u pick
Haha once a month for a year last time. u know la, a student need it for the purpose to write thesis report in another forum

Just come back from tokyo,and have a bunch of raw dng file from my phone.
Anyone want them? I could upload them and let you guy have some fun edit my shots.