A most epic weekend

Before I knew it, my birthday was creeping closer and closer, and partially out of laziness and general lack of social coordinating skills, I hadn't really spread out the word and planned anything big. We threw together some dinner plans a couple days beforehand and sent out the info, but ended up not getting a huge turnout, which was fine by me. Another reason for low attendance may also have been, oh...the freakin' typhoon that was scheduled to hit Gifu on my birthday. They were hyping up Typhoon 18 something fierce and said it had the strength of another past typhoon that ended up killing/injuring thousands. I didn't quite believe it, but people at work were concerned and told me I should come to work an hour early so I'd be at work by the time the typhoon's brunt was supposed to hit. I smiled and nodded, telling myself I'd play it by ear. It wasn't looking good, though, as when I left work that day, it was already pouring pretty hard...and I had forgotten to bring my rain gear that day, crap.
Shortly after arriving home I received a call from the apartment building coordinator telling me where the emergency evacuation site was, and that I would need to bring my own food if it came down to going there. A couple of us decided to grab bags of granola just in case, and headed to the nearby grocery store. The bread section was a freakin ghost town. They had some bakery donuts, etc. left, but loaf bread was nowhere to be found-that in and of itself was a bit surreal.

Yet even after all of this, I woke up the next morning to simply a cloudy sky and barely a drizzle. Thankfully, the typhoon had stayed south of Gifu prefecture (although where it hit, it did hit hard), so I had no problem getting to work, and the weather even cleared up a bit later in the day, so the dinner plans were back on. It ended up being a small group of 5 of us-mainly the Ogaki crew-Rock, Sarah, Jon, myself, and then Ozzy from Sekigahara (who is pretty much part of the Ogaki crew). Rock had told us of a magical all-you-can-eat restaurant called Stamina-taro. And they aren't lying, you NEED that stamina during the 90min. you are given to take full advantage of the grill your own meat (at your table), salad bar, noodle salad, udon, yakisoba, fried chicken, shrimp, fries, fruit, cakes, puddings, sushi, COTTON CANDY, crepes, ice cream...and I know I'm forgetting plenty.

Ozzy was an absolute grilling machine and somehow managed to eat 4 plates of meat, seemingly without slowing down one bit. I had some meat, and tried the potato and noodle salads, which were a taste straight from an American-style backdoor cookout. I also gorged on some of the most amazing seasoned steak fries I've ever had.

I also tried the sushi, which was decent. At this point, though, we were all getting a little loopy from the food/sugar, and, just for the sheer absurdity of it, I decided to pioneer a new culinary delight-grilled sushi. Yeah, it makes no sense-that's the whole point. They also had amazing grape sherbet, which we all just referred as "Purple." I swear Purple tasted just like the old Kool-aid flavor Purplesaurus Rex, anyone else remember that? That stuff was amazing. Eventually we all hit our wall, but not before making Stamina-taro wish they had never let us in. I sincerely doubt they made much, if any, profit off our visit.

That Saturday, we decided to trek up to Gifu castle, which rests atop a somewhat sizeable mountain. We met Rock's friend Duncan, who lives right near the base of the mountain in Gifu city, and headed up.

It was a nice hike with plenty of pretty nature, and it ended up taking about an hour to reach the castle. This was definitely about the journey, not the destination, as Gifu Castle was nothing terribly special. The view from the top of it was pretty spectacular, as you could even see Nagoya. The inside was modernized and consisted of a modest museum. The hike back down went much quicker and we went in search of a restaurant that Rock wanted to visit. After getting slightly lost we arrive at the place only to find out that it is closed in the middle of the afternoon. We decided to screw it and hopped on a bus back to Gifu station, where we randomly met a few other JETs on our way to an Indian curry place.

The next day was absolutely epic, as it was the infamous Jumangoku festival in Ogaki, which basically consists of various groups/organizations carrying portable shinto shrines in a parade, while progressively getting more and more drunk. As fate would have it, the city hall always enlists the help of local area JETs to help carry their shrine. So we all gathered near the city hall, donned our festival happi jackets and proceeded to the parade starting area. Various groups were already getting down to business, and by that, I mean drinking. We also had, quite literally, a cart of alcohol being towed along with our shrine the whole time. We broke into the beverages and did the initial group toast, promising to do (and drink) our best.

The group next to us was taking it to the next level, as they had made a circle, and were one by one entering the circle to drink a bowl of sake. Rock saw this and wanted in, so he approached them and had a go in the middle of the circle. It looked like a lot of fun, so I wandered over and was soon in the middle of a circle of middle-aged Japanese guys, screaming at me to drink. It went down quickly and without a problem (thanks to my time at UW-Madison) and was an excellent experience, not a mention a nice little kickstart toward inebriation. And we had nothing to do while waiting for the parade to start...so we kept drinking. Nothing like being buzzed at one in the afternoon...yikes.

The parade lasted about two hours and was a blast. We rotated in shifts for carrying the shrine, shouting "wasshoi" to help coordinate the constant heave-ho-ing of the shrine. It felt great to actually be a part of the event and be stared for a reason other than being a foreigner (although that was probably still part of it).

After the parade ended, there was the traditional throwing of rice paste chunks from atop an elevated platform. Everyone in the crowd below attempted to catch them and/or scramble to grab the ones that had hit the ground. Despite certain deficiencies in hand-eye coordination, (not sure why that was...) I managed to snag four of them out of the air, and I was relatively pleased with that number.

After that was an enkai (a large group party typically at a restaurant) that, earlier in the day, I had presciently decided to forego, as I figured I wouldn't really need anymore alcohol and didn't feel like dropping $30. Instead we all killed some time back at the apartments and then headed to Chorky's Diner (a 1950s syle american diner that serves proper burger, fries, shakes, and whatnot) for the birthday dinner of our friend Eri. We pretty much took over the place, with some random dancing even breaking out between the booths.

Despite the early onslaught of booze, I stopped after the parade finished and was actually in decent shape when I went to bed. Thankfully, the next day was a holiday and we were all able to properly and fully recover from the day's festivities.

Current Update: I had to work Saturday this weekend for the admissions exam/interviews, and spent today skyping with Maria and the capoeira folk in Madison and then watching UFC with Jon et al. It was great seeing people from capoeira again, but I can't help feeling a bit bummed that I'm not in Madison right now for the batizado. A little capoeira music ought to do the trick...