This Past Weekend

Some of the other ALTs in the area organized a sightseeing tour around Gifu city. I figured I had already seen all the sights, but I signed up anyway just for the social aspects.

And wouldn’t you know it? Rain all day. There seems to be a real pattern of rain on the weekends over here.

We were supposed to meet at the station. I followed my usual custom of getting free parking by parking at a supermarket far away from the station. So I arrived at the station late and with my pants (or I suppose I should say trousers) soaking wet. My upper body at least was protected by the umbrella.

Gifu is a city with a bit of history to it, but pretty much everything was flattened during the war. Most of the “historical” sites have been rebuilt since then. Most of the temples and castles in the area are just replicas. So it is a bit disappointing in that respect.

But we saw the usual stuff. Gifu Park is quite beautiful. There is “daibutsu” or a giant statue of Buddha. It’s not quite a big as the one in Nara, but it was still pretty damn big. I couldn’t help but imagine what would happen if it were struck by lightning and came to life and started terrorizing the town. When I voiced this concern, some people argued that a giant statue of Buddha would be inherently peaceful, but I believe that if giant statues suddenly came to life they would take on a personality of their own, and not simply imitate their likenesses. I’m open to debate on this issue though.

(BTW, the neighborhood I used to live in during the Ajimu days was called “daibutsu”. This led to a fair amount of confusion and bad jokes, that in addition to all the bad “Usa” Jokes. I used to tell people, “I live in Daibutsu”, and they would say “What? You live inside a giant Buddha?”…But, I suppose that’s neither here nor there.)

We also saw Cormorant fishing again. This makes the fourth time for me, although we watched it on the bank this time as opposed to paying money to ride in the boats.

Sunday I didn’t have any plans, so I climbed up the mountain to see Gifu castle on my own. As mentioned above, the castle itself is a replica, so it’s kind of disappointing, but it’s a nice hike, and a good view of the city from the top of the mountain. I think I’m really getting out of shape though, because I was really huffing and puffing on my way up that mountain, and there were all sorts of old men and little children who were doing the hike with ease.

Link of the Day
Justin puts a blog post about driving in Japan. I can really identify with a lot of this.