Wandering Fel

8D Avia Japan Trip: Hida Beef Fest at Takayama Old Town

Hida beef katsu from Takayama Old Town Japan

Hida beef katsu from Takayama Old Town store

Hida beef buns shop from Takayama Old Town Japan

Hida beef bun from Takayama Old Town Japan

Brown on sake barrel at Takayama Old Town Japan

I am getting a bit lazy to write lately because the burden of daily life has make me losing my inspiration. But I forced myself to write tonight no matter what it takes. Anyway, I feel it’s easier to write about past travel story because it somehow motivates you to earn dollars to fund your next travel plan. So let’s continue our walk in Takayama Old Town, shall we?

If you are not keen to go for sake tasting with empty stomach, you may want to take a deeper stroll to the alleys in Takayama Old Town because you don’t know what you will find out here. For instance, the road will lead you to a food store selling Hida beef skewer. Hida beef is so popular here in Takayama but it doesn’t come with cheap pricetag so in order to make it more affordable (and hence, attracting cheapo tourists’ attention like us), shops in Takayama Old Town sells Hida beef at various sizes. One skewer of Hida beef costs 500 JPY. Considering you can get a bowl of ramen at that price, oh well you know it’s not really a cheap delicacy but don’t leave this place without trying it, okay?

A few steps later we stumbled into a fried beef Croquette shop. I suppose all the shops here claim to sell Hida beef so let’s just believe them since there’s no way for us to proof them otherwise. I love this traditional croquette, it’s so crispy and the taste of the hot beef in curry sauce just burst at your mouth when you bite it. Yummy. Best to eat it hot so devour it straight away upon getting your hand on it.

Next, on the way back to the meeting point with the tour group, we saw a shop selling Hida beef buns. Since we are not going to see anymore Hida beef after leaving Takayama Old Town, we decided to say goodbye to this lovely old town by buying this beef bun. Same with the croquette, it’s best to consume this bun immediately because it won’t be so nice when it’s cold. I wish I have more time to explore Takayama Old Town but there is not much you can do when you join a tour group. At least, I had the chance to munch a lot of Hida beef that day. Oops, must not forget to take Brown after some photo-taking hehe.

Good morning from Gifu. After our very packed first day getting through Osaka, Kyoto and ending the day with a stayover at Gifu, we were ready to embark on the second day of our spring Japan tour with Avia tour. Day 2 starts at Gifu with a unique activity which can only be done in Japan. Uhm, nope, I know that river in the old town of Gifu is so beautiful and we do feel like having a morning walk immediately around the old town but we have thing that we need to do here.

8D Avia Japan Tour: Japanese Food Replica Making in Gifu

The activity that we need to do will be done in this one traditional store in Gifu. Oh I wonder if this involves eating snack, which is definitely what I love to do in Japan. I think I have space in my stomach for Japanese snack for sure.

The store is actually selling food replica. Do you notice that most restaurants in Japan display their menu in a wax replica which really looks similar to the real dish (sometimes even better). This is the store where you can buy keychains or fridge magnet in the form of food such as ice cream, dango (i.e. traditional Japanese cake), tempura, sushi, and even a can of spilled coffee or beer. That would be a very fun and harmless prank to pull at one of your friend’s house.

The classroom for the course is situated at the back of the store. The store itself is pretty huge and it seems to be very popular with the tourist because our tour guide emphasize that we have to reach this place by certain timing. I initially thought we will be exposed to intricate and complicated design of food replica but turns out I was worry for nothing.

Venue for food replica making course in Gifu Japan

Oh, are we making fake fruit tarts? Looks at how real the fruit pieces look like. I suddenly imagining myself having a real sweet and fruity tart for after-breakfast-dessert. Hahaha. Since there are 16 of us, we were split into 2 groups but the teacher spoke in Japanese and hence, our tour guide need to explain to us the steps required to make our food replica. Since it involves hot wax, please exercise caution. After a demo has been done, we will have our chance one by one to make our own version of...

...prawn tempura and cabbage. For the tempura, each of us was given the prawn so we just need to wrap the yellow which eventually turn into something which resembles batter. The cabbage is basically made by spreading out the green color wax like crepe and then shape it into a ball by squeezing it slowly. I wish they can be smaller because it’s kinda difficult for me to display them when they look this big. I mean, bigger make it kinda less cuter, right? Hahaha.

After the whole hands-on experience is done, the store staff will hand you a discount coupon yeay! We took our time to check out what we wanted to buy and my mum ended up with 4 fridge magnets in different kind of food. Our fridge door is really full of magnet now. Once you are done shopping, take your time to enjoy the scenery of the surrounding area a few steps outside the store. I really love the view of the river in the old town in Japan. It’s so clean and serene not like the river in the big cities I suppose.

The other side of the river has some flowers which I don’t think are sakura but nonetheless, they look pretty. Brown enjoys the view and sunlight of a clear spring day too.

By the way, where is Gifu? Gifu is actually located within 2 hours of bus ride from Kyoto. Train ride from Kyoto to Gifu takes longer around 4 hours unless you want to take shinkansen to Nagoya instead and then taking bus to Gifu. I read in Tripadvisor that it is cheaper to take an overnight bus from Kyoto to Gifu if you want to save time.

Wandering Fel

8D Avia Japan Trip: Hida beef fest at Takayama Old Town

8D Avia Japan Trip: Japanese Food Replica Making in Gifu