Father 1/2.
So my dad arrived safely at around 8PM on Friday night. Moments before we left to go pick him up at the train station everyone at work had broken into a chorus of the “Tanuki” schoolyard song.
Tan Tan Tanuki
No kintama wa
Kaze mo nai no ni
Bura Bura“Ra ra racoon dog’s
Big golden balls
Even when there is no wind
They sway to and fro”
The next morning we woke up early and took my dad for a Morning set. Basically the Gifu area is famous for giving you free breakfast with your coffee. It was quite nice.
We then saw everything Gifu had to offer before lunch. We went to the park and saw the “Silver Army” getting ready with their war banners. They were going to clean the park. Retired people have been mobilized.
We took the ropeway up to the castle and saw all of Gifu’s majesty. That was a great 10 minutes.
By then we headed back to the apartment before going to lunch with Greg. He took us to a great restaurant that served really great sandwiches for Japan. After that Greg took us to Inaba shrine. This is a gorgeous shrine. One of the best I’ve seen in Japan.
He had us walk through the many Tori gates that is there for couples for a good marriage as it was our one year anniversary.
After that we went to the mall to get some souvenirs. We weren’t successful.
When we got back to the apartment my dad and I got ready for the party that night and then rested our eyes for about 20 minutes before going to Nagoya for Jim’s 900th farewell party.
The party was really pretty great. It had great people, unique food (Completely unidentifiable), and an amazing accordion band.
Day one was really quite successful and exhausting.
The next day we took the car and drove to Mino to see the historic streets and see the famous paper crafts. Souvenier shopping was more successful here, but we had started the day off by loosening up our wallets at the grocery store and liquor store.
Know those stupid half cans of soda they sometimes give you on planes, or that annoying girlfriends buy because they are “cute?” Well you can half those again and put beer in them. A 6-pack is 100 yen. I’m not making this up.
He bought that, some pre-mixed Gin & Tonics, a dehydrated squid, and a mystery pack of snacks for his workers.
At the grocery store there were tons of people doing their Sunday shopping. There was quite a large crowd around the seafood section, and the reason why was that they had a whole yellow-fin tuna there. Like 4 feet long. A guy came out, armed with 3 knives. One was a saw blade, one was a large butcher knife, and the final was a 2 foot long katana. He quartered the fish, and then packaged individual portions to order right in front of you. I got some for dinner.
Today, Dad is going to watch one of my lessons. One of my craziest ones. Should be good fun. Tonight for dinner is Yaki-Niku (Grill your own meat!).
April 20th, 2009 at 10:50 am by rl