Lots has been happening… here are the highlights
The ‘Paper’ on Japanese Culture
Totally lost in translation my Sensei asked me, in broken engrish, if I’d like to visit city hall to see a paper on Japanese culture. Thinking this would be some horrible academic affair in Japanese, I attempted to get out of the day by saying that I was going to see some local sites with a friend, which was true. It proved to be very difficult to get out of, and I was feeling awkward about the whole thing so I bit the bullet and decided to go. It became evident why it was so hard to cancel… his wife was waiting in the car down stairs. He had actually planned to take a few of the Australian students, but since I figured they wouldn’t be interested I didn’t tell them. So I woke luke up and talked him into coming, and we were out the door in 5min.
It became evident very quickly that he actually intended to take us on a Japanese cultural tour, where we would stop at a City Hall to see how the traditional Mino paper was made. Totally lost in translation. The mino papers is the type with leafs and what not embedded in it. We actually got to make our own piece of Mino paper, which was more interesting than it sounds… and I do secretly have a thing for paper making. Turns out Mino paper has been made for more than 10,000 years! After that we were treated to lunch, followed by a tour of a traditional Japanese house. Had the most beautiful garden (see photos), but was rather cold inside. The day was topped of by some traditional Japanese green tea. Which is very strong and made from the tips of the tea plant. All in all it was a lovely surprise, and all organised by my Sensei! What a nice guy hey.
Australia vs. Vietnam
The following day we were invited to play tennis with some other students. Turns out they were all vietnamese, most doctors and several IT guys. I played tennis (and learnt how to keep score) for the first time in 14 years. I guess its sort of like riding a bike, thanks mum for all those lessons way back when! All things considered, we didn’t loose to badly. The friendly challenges continued over at the pool hall, where Australia did better! Just as well because we were playing for the cost of the table hire… which we didn’t actually have, phew! Looks like we will be up for a rematch and day now.
Woman Beater
We had a nasty run in on Friday, experiencing a totally different side of Japan. We were riding back from picking up our residency cards, which we are still not sure why we need, when we had a traffic accident. We were riding side by side and up on the footpath, as is required in Japan, when a middle aged lady stepped out from behind a wall as the exited a shop. At this point Luke was only about 2m from her, he slammed on his breaks but alas it was too late. I was out a bit further, and saw the lady walking out before Luke… so I saw the whole thing happen in slow motion. He hit her pretty hard, she was thrown about half a meter before coming to land on the cold cement with luke not far away. She didn’t move, or say anything. It probably didn’t make things any better that two foreigners were leaning over jabbering english in her face. It was so freaky. We called for help, and the police and ambulance came quickly. She lay there the whole time motionless. They took her away on a stretcher. The police then questioned us about what had happened and recreated the scene…. observing every minor detail. In Australia I’m not sure if we would go to as much trouble. We then realised that because it was an accident we were obliged to go to the hospital and make an apology. So we jumped in the police car and off we went to the hospital, when we arrived she was in the MRI section… and Luke was freaking out. I did my best to keep things in perspective for him… though I’m not sure it helped too much. While we were waiting to speak with her he cobbled together a few short phrases from the Lonely Planet which I had with me. We saw her walk out after a short time, which was such a relief. She spent a few moments talking with the police then luke attempted to apologise. She took it well, and was getting around ok. These Japanese women are tougher than the look!
Another interesting thing that happened, or rather that we noticed, was that while we were walking around with the police the looks the locals were giving us were… well… horrible… like we were evil or something. I guess that is a taste what racism feels like. I can imagine the same thing happening to black people in a white neighborhood. Glad to have experienced it short term though. I’ve heard that the Japanese can be quite racist, but I haven’t noticed it too much other than that.
Gifu-jo (Gifu Castle)
Yesterday we finally got around to climbing Gifu-jo. Placed at the highest point of the mountain range at around 400m. The accent started about 40min ride from the university (on our single gear bikes). We attempted to ride up the actual mountain bit, but it became evident that that was going to be impossible very quickly - given our non existent gears. We stopped, puffed, outside what turned out to be the Japanese history research centre, while we caught out breath we were again whisked away by Japanese hospitality. A man came out of the building with the intention of walking us half way up the mountain using the rest of his lunch break! Turns out he is a Japanese History teacher and gave us the low down on the mountain. Most awesome. Was so nice to get outdoors and rejoice in the beauty of nature… ahh… perhaps I picked the wrong profession. Check out the photos for all awesomeness.
Izakaya, the Bankers and Gifu Nightlife
Hungry and in need of rest we jumped back on our bike and headed for the city, where we intended to blow a lot of cash on a feast! While in search of a nice restaurant we stumbled upon this cobbled together Izakaya, complete with beer creates for tables. My kind of joint :). Nothing like street food. Was on par with some of the best I’ve had in China and Thailand. Not really sure of the protocols we took seats at one of the beer crates, after a few minutes it became evident we wern’t getting served… so I went up and asked for futasu beru (two beers). Japanese beer rocks btw. She said ok, but they never came… so next we tried food. but that never came either… This place seemed so popular we weren’t ready to walk away just yet. So we started broken conversations with the table next door… who were already well on the way to … a good night. They invited us to their table (beer crate), where even they had to jump up and down to get us beer and food… but they found it very amusing too. Turns out this Izakaya is the ichiban (Number 1) in the Gifu Prefecture! Izakaya is pretty much just beer and grilled skewers of various thing, mostly meat.
It surprises me how much we can communicate even with our basic Japanese. It almost makes it more exciting, because everyone is so engaged it trying to make heads and tails of what is being said. There was yoda (64), our japanese-father (54), a young guy 22 who spoke more english than the others, and a reserved middle aged man. The Japanese-Father dude was the boss, and I got the feeling that the other were just going along trying to keep up with him. It was a crazy night, we didn’t really know how much we had drunk because they kept refilling our glasses. But it was alot. After the beers, we walked around and got refused from a whole heap of places, because Japanese-Father was a little tipsy. But these guys were too much fun to let go. We had a bourbon and coke in a German bar, which was nice and got me on a high thinking about how I’m going to be able to do this all again in Germany in a few months. This was followed closely by pizza and more beers. Then we got refused from a few more places before going to their favorite joint, a mexican place. Yum food, followed by several tequila sunrises - which they loved as much as us. I think we had 3 shots in the space of 15 minutes… you can imagine we were getting worried that we wouldn’t be able to find our way home 40min ride in a unfamiliar city. I feel a bit bad now that they wouldn’t let us pay for anything, but what can you do! I shoved money in their wallets and they just gave it back! I think they understood that we were students. They really can be too kind at times. I’ll take good care of you guys if/when you visit Australia.
To top that off Japanese-Father wants to drive to Mt Fuji next weekend, which just happens to coincide with my birthday. He seems keen to take us, and is an outdoors person. So fingers crossed that happens.
Well thats it from me. Until next time, take care and be kind to one another.
Your friend,
Nathan
Posted on December 15th, 2008 :: Filed under
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Travel,
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and sat on the floor waiting for her return… in a stroke on genius I decided to check for wifi… sure enough free internet, so we called maki and she returned 
lol. and we just need one extra sleeping bag. So I put the call out of couch surfers Nagoya forum for a sleeping bag and a tent, on loan with a security deposit. Fingers crossed. Otherwise I might just go buy one.
