Takayama

Takayama - our last stop! As Vee mentioned below, this town is beautiful, as is the surrounding area. It is a quaint, almost medieval, town and is full of old-fashioned shopping streets (photo #1) where you can buy tonnes of souvenirs and amazing food like Hida beef buns/sticks. Small rivers run throughout (see photo #2), covered in tonnes of bridges.
Today, we took a long walk through the town, and up into Shibuya park - beautiful normally, but made even more so by an overnight dusting of snow (as I type, it's snowing like mad outside). Photos #3 and 4 were taken in the park, and you can see the Japanese alps in the background. The mountains are stunning, and we actually took a day trip into them yesterday. Unfortunately though, by the time we took the Shinhotaka ropeway to its peak, we were in the middle of a blizzard! The trees behind Vee in the panorama shot aren't more than 10-15m, and you could barely see them. Slightly different to the blazing heat of places like Siem Reap.
The last photo is of a couple stuffed animals - 3 of the near 100,000 available in the town. Go figure.
I hope you enjoy, as these are almost certainly the last photos we will be posting! Amazing how time flies...