Gujo Trip (Part 1)

So this past weekend I took a trip to Gujo Hachiman, a town in Gifu Prefecture and about four hours away from Nagoya. It was... steller.

Let's me be honest when I say leading up to the trip I was not having a great time. I've been pretty stressed out for various reasons and just overall tired of everything. Like not just like- Oh man today is a crappy day. More like- Geez why is this happening here this is all stupid.

So Friday I was getting ready and didn't really complete it until 4am. This is because I was doing laundry at 2am. At least the dryers were free for once. I finally managed to sleep a bit before waking up early over viewing everything and making sure all was in order then I went to the lobby. Everyone was pretty tired, but we went to Nagoya Station, then transferred to the JR Line and eventually went on a mountain train.

Nagoya Station before we boarded the JR Line

Throughout the time it took to get up there I mostly talked to the other students from Broadway, Disney Music, Disney Princesses, What we were planning on doing, International Students, Japanese Classes, and so on. Sometimes I played Harvest Moon or listened to a song or two on my ipod. By the time we got there, Tero and Lucas were waiting for us casually. Michael and Raine joked about something and I caught some great photos of Raine. It was just a lot of fun. As we walked through the town on our way to the center It was obviously in the mountains but I didn't see the big deal about it until we got to the main section.

Waiting Game

Gujo is famous for it's  Pristine Water. It flows through the town, you can hear it everywhere. Koi live in the grates near the houses, and it is just stellar. Beautiful... so pretty...

We first stopped by the hostel to drop off our bags. On the way in Raine noticed a double halo around the sun. I've never seen anything like it. A clear halo around the sun and a second one like a circular horizontal rainbow. It was like a good omen or something. After that we went to the river bank. We waded through the water which reminded me a lot of NC rivers, just cleaner. The water was so clear, and it was so cool to the touch. Very Soothing. The rocks were slick with Algae (just like NC) so you really had to watch your step. We skipped some stones, and chilled before finally getting out and walking around the town in search for lunch.

What a sight

We finally ended up at a restaurant where we were seated in a more traditional room next to a garden. The only annoying thing was the yowling cat, but otherwise it was good. I ordered this chicken dish that was the restaurant specialty. Imagine my surprise when the dish came out covered in fish shavings.

The room with a view

Yowling Cat

Now for those of you who haven't known/been told- I hate seafood. Ever since I was a kid I jut didn't like it. Recently I've been able to tolerate the smell and eat some things with some Dashi in them however seafood as much as I want to eat it... grosses me out.

You can't see it, but that seafood dish was totally moving yo

And now I have paid for a dish.... about 8-9 dollars or so (750yen) And it was covered in the thin fish shavings that moved from the heat of the dish. I got used to the smell first soon I didn't notice it and so I just sucked it up and stirred it around and ate it, using the rice to kinda wipe out a lot of the taste. After a while I wasn't really thinking about it. Overall a victory! I was extremely happy with myself.

((Pictures will come soon, between midterms and everything else posting about Gujo is slow but I need to do it before this weekend! Kyoto Trip coming up soon))