Rainy Day in Takayama (by All of Us)

From Gifu, we headed by train to Takayama for the day. We walked through the morning market and headed to the Hida Kokubun-ji, the town's oldest temple. We did temple-like things, which you've read about in other blog posts at this point. =)

Preserved part of the old city (before the rain)

"Happy" as written by the puppet behind Kara

Then, torrential rain started. Not just regular rain; it was soak-you-to-the-bone rain. (Note to selves: Weather.com works here, too.) 

So we purchased two umbrellas to share, and headed to the Karakuri Museum that houses lots of lion masks that are used in local festivals. We also saw a puppet show with mechanical karakuri ningyo that flipped and did all kinds of tricks. Some of the puppets were also controlled by skilled handlers -- one of the puppets even wrote the kanji symbol for "happy" on it, and wrote the word in English, too. Here's a picture of Kara with it. Pretty cool!

This was the first day we felt really tired during the trip. Things didn't work out as planned, but we rolled with the (weather) punches. When we got back to Gifu (where it was also pouring), we went to the grocery store, stocked up on junk food, and went back to the hotel to watch game shows and play cards. We don't really understand what's going on, but the diversion was much welcomed.

A lion mask used in festivals

PS. Kara and Maura were really good sports and have done pretty well as we've traveled together. Kara looks a little *unhappy* in the photo because her feet were wet and mom forgot to turn the flash on for the initial picture, so this was a retake.