How did I end up in Takayama?

My standard for being in a truly foreign place is this - do I know anybody's name within 100km of me?
The answer right now is almost certainly no.

Emerging from the temple, I had a lot of questions. Like, oh yeh, what do I do now?
Figuring that good fortune comes to those who have no idea what they're doing, I decide to come up with no plan whatsoever until I get to the train station. About 200m outside the temple gates, before I even reach the bus stop to take a bus to the station, another participant in the Sanzensha program offers me a lift. I love how my stupid ideas work in this country!

I had seen him before explaining where he lives to one of the other foreigners, and I thought it was somewhere between Kyoto and Nagoya. I was plannign on heading to Osaka, right next to Kyoto, so I thought this woudl at least be a step in the right direction. So I hop in the car with his wife and daughter (who had no idea whatsoever that I was coming, and were a wee bit shocked at first), and the car winds its way through taller and taller mountains. I am amazed by the scenery, and they tell me it is the Japanese Alps. Japanese Alps? Wait a minute, that doesn't sound right...

Turns out I am going in practically the opposite direction to Kyoto, and their house is just as far, if not further, from Osaka than Eiheiji. Ah well, looks like I'm on the road again! I simply ask where they recommend, and they all agree Takayama is a fantastic place. Okey dokey, I head for Takayama! It is indeed very cozy, nestled away in the Japanese Alps, and about the same size as Albury. I check into a youth hostel, so fantastically luxurious I feel guilty for being here, even though it was only $35 a night. Two computers for free internet use? A widescreen TV? A vending machine in the corner? To top it all off, my dormitory has become a private room as there is nobody else staying there at the moment! Oh, and did I mention that it is actually a temple? Yeh I know, I'm an addict now. I saw those paper walls and tatami mats and couldn't resist another night in Japanesey-ness. So tempting to go sit on those tatami mats for another hour or two until my legs burn with pain, just like old times...

What will I do here? It was rather relaxing having such a strict schedule at the temple, as it meant I never had to think about what I was going to do next, or make my own decisions. For example, for the first time in four days I had to decide what I was going to eat! Naturally, my decision was terrible. Takayama has many regional specialties, and when I saw 'broiled cheese and potato', I assumed this was one of them. As I did not quite know what broiled meant, I assumed it was something like cottage cheese stuffed into a potato, which sounded like a refreshing change from miso, rice and noodles. What came out was a pool of molten cheese, with hot chips floating in it. The pool had solidified slightly, and it basically resembled a fanatical cheese lover's version of nachoes, except with hot chips instead of corn chips. Needless to say, it was absolutely disgustingly oily and fatty, but backpacker and temple philosophies both agreed that I had to eat all of it anyway, as I could not waste it. The predictable tummy ache this caused is the reason I am sitting here on the computer typing away at 10 o clock, despite it being way past my bedtime. Hey, I got up at 3 30, ok?

A sleep in tommorow, followed no doubt by an adventure of some kind I suppose!