Advertisement
Published: September 28th 2007
A rock???
Yes, it has the writing of Basho on it, but it was in a hotel so we had to get the guy to clean the rain off.Gify City and surrounding areas are a pretty place nestled in hills and small mountains, and the Nobi plains, with lots of little towns. Dave and I have had the tourist expereince, now we're here not only to vist but to get into the modern culture a bit, less the temples and more the people. I am really done sightseeing to be honest, I am really temple-ed out.
Wow, Gifu has grown a lot in 16 years! We are staying in the home of Mr and Mrs Fukutomi near the river. They have a traditional wooden house about 45 years old. As Gifu was bombed bad in the war, there is only a few older houses where the merchants use to live near Gifu Castle. The food we're eating is a mix of western and Japanese, so I am trying to make sure I keep up my manners as best as I can with all eating implements. The first thing we did when we arrived was a song. Mr. Fukutomi asked us to help him translate a traditional song into English. Dave and I worked on the lyrics, while Mr. F played the piano for us with the tune. It
was a blast! It's so hard to get the same meaning and keep within the tune. We sang it out so much we were horse, but here is our results. Anyone familar with the tune will know it's a cute kid's song, but it was such a bastard to get the English words to fit the tune and metre. The funniest part was that everyone went nuts over Dave's drawing of the Tombo at the top, people here love cute things!
All work and no play makes a boring vacation so the three of us (Mrs. Fukutomi stayed in) went off to Gifu castle and surrounding areas. We took the rope way ans saw the city above us, so green and lush. It continually amazes me how everything in Japan grows mad. We then hiked up to the castle which was very busy with other tourists.
Mr Fukutomi told us yesterday that he planned a dinner party for 10 people for tomorrow night. His wife would like it if I cooked Canadian food. OMG...what is Canadian food?? We eat anything that is not alive still as we're a multicultural country with take away sushi on one corner and
Tori!!!
Shinto tori that are donnated by local businesses, good advertising. curry on the next. I decided on Mac and Cheese, and carrots/potatoes together, with apple pie for dessert. Mrs. F would provide the salad and the tempura to round it out as the guests, eager as they are to try my food, maybe horrified. Before you complain about my chocies, remember I am trying to think of things we eat all the time and what I can find here. Meatloaf was not an option. Little did I know this was going to be hard. I found some macarooni easliy enough, the cheese was the fondu type, the carrots were massive and the poatoes had a weird skin. Then the pie crust: most people don't have ovens here so I bought these tiny pre made crusts. Apparently they don't eat pie here ever.
It went as I suspected: really well with lots of new people to see, were asked to sing our new song, and everyone was really polite about my food. So, all in all, not bad. The tempura was great as they use fresh seafood here, which made all the difference. The people that came over were so wonderful, one was an old student of Mr. Fukutomi's (he
Traditional homes
north of Gifu there is one old traditional home. was a science teacher) who now works for NHK, the national tv station. She was so kind to me, Mr. Ohashi, the piano tuner...the list goes on. What binds them together is thier affection for our hosts. And a game called Carrom.
Carrom or carroms is a family of tabletop games sharing a similarity in that their mechanics lie somewhere between billiards and table shuffleboard. The game has various other names around the world, including carrum, carum, karam, karom, karum, and "Indian finger billiards". Well, there is a very active club that Mr. and Mrs. Fukutomi started in Gifu with over 50 memebers. Many of them were at dinner and we staged a tournament. As for Dave and I, we are now addicted to the game and have tried to play every day we are here to the delight of our hosts.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.095s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 10; qc: 59; dbt: 0.0548s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
