We woke up to a cold morning and a dusting of snow in Inuyama (犬山). Since it looked like it was clearing up, we went for a walk.

Winter cherry blossoms.

We walked to Inuyama castles and the surrounding old town. The castle was closed for the New Year break – like Himeji Castle its one of the few remaining original castles. Most other castles have been “rebuilt” such as Nagoya and Osaka Castle.

The main street of old town is the only street in Inuyama that we saw without overhead electrical lines.

We had lunch at Kagamihara 55 (カガミハラ55. つけめん らーめん), a “tsukemen ramen” shop, where the ramen noodles are served separately from the soup and you dip the noodles in the soup as needed, like soba. But when you are done, you a get a bowl of rice and cheese that you dip into the soup, place the bowl onto an induction heater at your table and end up with risotto. There was a line up to get in outside and it was cold – here were a couple of portable heaters but only at the front of the line.

After lunch we visited the Jakkoin Shrine (寂光院) in the mountains:

Wagyu carpaccio at Daruma Izakaya