Chillaxin' in Gero

...Do people even say "chillax" anymore? Don't really care, I still like it, so deal.
Anywho...after getting off the train at Gero (thanks again, old dude), I was quite glad I had prioritized proximity to the station when booking the hotel the night before. After maybe a 5 minute walk or so, we found the place. I hadn’t even thought about it, but they asked for our passports when we checked in. Instead, I handed her my Alien Registration Card, which is my ID so I don’t have to carry my passport everywhere. She looked very confused, then asked if I live in Japan (umm...yeah, you kind of have to in order to receive one of those cards), and consulted her boss to see if it was acceptable. Umm, it had better be. Your government issued it, what’s the problem? They asked if Maria lived in Japan, too, and I just lied and said yes since Maria didn’t have her passport with her, either. Thankfully they didn’t ask for any of her documents. We were finally able to set down our stuff …and then headed down to the onsen! I freaking love onsen, in my opinion, they are one of the most relaxing things in the world. I was especially looking forward to it, hoping it would relax my misbehaving back muscles. They seem to have an incredible knack for tangling themselves twixt each other. Surprisingly, (or maybe not for those who work in an office) I think sitting in an office chair all day with less than stellar posture is contributing to this more than capoeira ever has. Anyway, the hotel had an indoor bath to soak in, along with two baths exposed to the outdoors (although still covered overhead). The view off the ledge, though, was amazing. You could look out across the river and up to the snow-covered mountains. The only problem is I couldn’t really wear my glasses into the bath (steam, etc) and didn’t have my contacts, so the lovely view was rather blurry. Oh well. In any event, it was incredibly relaxing, and since it’s winter, you get the nice contrast of being super warm everywhere and then a nice cool breeze on your head. I pretty much fell asleep like a baby after that, only to wake up and, you guessed it, head down to the baths one more time. After sipping on some green tea and cookies that were in the room, it was time to check out.

We then picked up the tourist guide map from the station and headed up towards this “village” museum area that had transplanted “gasshou-zukuri” houses from Shirakawa village. It worked out well, since Maria had wanted to visit that village, anyway. It ended up being a really cool place, and we toured a couple houses converted into museums. It was certainly neat to see all the old tools and machines used “back in the day” but the real treat was this random old guy sitting at the old-school coal/ash pit for cooking. He apparently works there and chats people up a bit and takes their picture if they’d like. Well, he thought it was really cool that I spoke Japanese and could understand his mumbling old man speak and ended up chatting with us for quite a long time. Unlike the old guy on the train, this dude was a class act. He was roasted some onigiri and other goodies over the coal pit for his lunch, and he offered, nay, insisted that he share it with us. So we each had a roasted onigiri, golden brown and crunchy on the outside, warm and soft on the inside, and absolutely wonderful. He also had some tofu and pickled radish and a couple other goodies, along with a thermos full of tea that he offered to share. Maria and I felt bad that we were essentially eating half this dude’s lunch, so we tried not to eat a ton. We probably chatted for an hour or so, talking about cultural differences and our hometowns…and the fact that Suzuki Motocorps is having really good sales in India (a morsel of info he pointed out to me after learning Maria was half-Indian). As cool as this dude was, Maria and I wanted to continue on with the day and were about to leave when he insisted upon getting a picture of the three of us. So we politely waited for another group o’ tourists to come along and take our picture. In the meantime, he gave us some suggestions as to what to do with the rest of the day. Halfway through his suggestions, I was surprised to hear him say, “Now this is going to sound weird, but there’s this toilet.” Uh, wha? For a second, I thought I had misheard. But no, he went on to tell us of this legendary restroom located in the parking lot of one of the buildings further up the hill. Again, this guy was just plain awesome. We really only got vague directions and sadly never ended up finding this “lavatory of the gods,” but it’s about the journey, not the destination, right? In any case, that was two funky old guys in two days. I thoroughly enjoy random encounters like these, so that alone made the trip up north a success in my mind.

In the middle of the village area was what looked to be a hot spring foot bath. It looked like you could just sit on the ledge and dip your feet/legs into the canal of piping hot water. Our feet were freezing, so this looked amazing. However, we lacked a towel of any sort, so we went into the merch shop on the premises and picked some up. We then made a beeline for the foot bath, only to find the water to be scalding (as least it felt that way to my icicle toes). After a few minutes of timid test dipping, I was able to leave my feet submerged in the toasty hot water. Maria was not far behind, and we sat there soaking our feet for probably close to a half hour, happy as pigs in shit.

The steam rising off the water’s surface looked particularly cool as well. As a testament to the temperature of the water, there was a line halfway up my calf below which was pink. There was more proof in the fact that my feet stayed noticeably warm for a couple hours afterward, despite walking through snowy, wet areas in my shoes that are starting to detach from their soles.
Maria often claims that my face ruins a picture, and I believe gave an example of such over on her blog. I am not one to take this lying down, so I am providing a counterpoint...or rather just a corollary: Maria's face also ruins a picture. Exhibit A and B are below.
Note the beautiful nature:

Note that horrible face Maria is making:

We walked a bit more through the village when I noticed a sign outside of the café/restaurant on the premises that said they had amazake (sweet sake). I had only had the stuff once before, and even then it was just a dixie cup’s worth while standing in line at a temple on new year’s (when I studied abroad 3 years ago), but the stuff was amazing and had left quite the impression on me. I was elated at the chance to have it again and browbeat (well, not literally, although I wouldn’t put it past my eyebrows) Maria into eating there for lunch. I had oden (Japanese stewed assorted goodies) and gohei mochi (rice paste slathered with an amazing slightly sweet yet savory sauce) and Maria had tempura udon. The food was great, with the gohei mochi being especially nostalgic.
The real attraction, though, was the amazake. Unlike “regular” sake, this stuff isn’t clear; it still has bits of soft rice in it and sports an opaque white color. Although I could maybe see someone not appreciating the texture, the taste makes up for it and then some. It tastes mainly of ginger with only a faint alcohol taste, and according to Maria it has hints of cardamom, but I’m not sold on that completely. Either way, it is an extremely delicious beverage and really hit the spot.
Warmed by both the foot bath and sake, we felt ready to go searching for that toilet. We headed up the hill as directed, but couldn’t find the proper turn off. It was just as well, though, because we made it to this bridge that has an expansive view over Gero city, and it lined on the other side by absolutely massive evergreens.

We took in the scenery, and managed to find a toilet, but not the toilet. This would have to be close enough, since we had to start heading back to catch our train. Despite taking the local train back, this time we didn’t run into any colorful characters.
Back in Ogaki, we had one more item to scratch off Maria’s list of food to eat, and that was takoyaki (octopus dumplings). So we headed over to the food court in the nearby mall and stopped at the grocery store so Maria could pick up some snacks and whatnot to bring back to the States. Maria reluctantly started packing while we watched more Anthony Bourdain. She actually managed to finish with some left over time to sleep, which is more than can be said for myself when I pulled an all-nighter packing before I moved over here (not my smartest moment). We had planned to get to the airport a little over 2 hours before her flight, but things got a little interesting when we managed to botch the normally routine transfer at Kanayama. We were supposed to connect to the 10:05 express to airport, and indeed both Maria and I swear it was 10:05 when we stepped on the train, and I distinctly recall seeing the sign say the next train was the 10:05 airport express, but the next train the pulled up, and that we got on, was actually headed somewhere else. Looking back, I should’ve realized since the airport bound train usually have the airport logo on the cars somewhere. Still, my “oh shit” sense kicked only a few stations into the ride, so we got off at the next stop, where I ran down to the station attendant’s window and asked what the quickest way to the aiport would be. We had to double back a couple stations and catch a transfer there. I was getting quite worried at this point, since we hadn’t factored in a whole lot of extra time to get lost. It seemed like maybe Maria wasn’t meant to go back to grad school, but rather spend her days eating her way around Japan. We lucked out, though, and the transfer was quick, and even an express train, so we managed to get to the airport with enough time for her to check-in (literally no line, thank you Nagoya airport) and say our goodbyes.
Needless to say, the train ride home was a rather lonely one. In an effort to combat the low I was riding, I called up Jon and Sarah and we grabbed dinner at Sato, a place with some outrageously scrumptious tempura donburi. Good food and good friends always helps out.

Walkin' in a Winter Wonderland

Having checked off most of the things on the “Stuff to eat while in Japan” list, there was still a non-food experience that Maria had to try, onsen (hot springs). Maria had to leave on Sunday, so I took Friday off so we could take an overnight trip up to northern Gifu, where the city of Gero, one of the most famous hot spring areas in Japan, is located. Maria wanted to see Shirakawa village, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, known for its unique “Gassho-zukuri” style houses. It’s quite a long way up to the village, and I had planned the train times only to find out that we would have to be leaving the apartment by 6am. We tentatively went ahead with this plan, but as you can imagine, we were not out of the apartment by 6am. In fact thanks to multiple alarm clock failures, neither of us were up until about 8:30am. We weren’t too concerned, though, and simply edited the plan to instead visit the city of Takayama, which is known for having a section of original, old style wooden housing, and then moving on to Gero.

We took the express train up to gain lost time, and it was the most beautiful train ride I've ever been on. The train traveled east for a bit before making the turn north. And once we turned north, the scenery changed rapidly. Mountains appears on both sides out of nowhere, and all of a sudden there was snow on the ground. And then it started snowing, all the trees on the mountains were covered with freshly fallen snow. We also went along the Kiso river briefly, which is called "The Danube of Japan." After a few rounds of nodding off only to wake up to more incredible nature, we arrived in Takayama.

We grabbed a map and headed for the district with the old houses. Most folks on these streets run stores on the first floor for tourists and live on the second floor. The whole time we were in Takayama, it was snowing. But given the fact the it was snowing, the temperature really wasn’t that bad. One of the sake shops along the street of old housing also had a sign out advertising soy sauce flavored soft serve. Yes, I know what you’re thinking-it sounds disgusting. Yet that’s the kind of thing that piques my curiosity, and I figured it had to be decent or they wouldn’t still be selling it. And lo and behold, it was delectable. To be fair, it didn’t really taste like soy sauce. If I really concentrated and tried to taste it, I could maybe get a hint, but it was so faint and so overpowered by the overall sweetness that it really just tasted like something completely different, and completely awesome. They also had a sake bottle with the triforce on it. Badass.

We wandered a bit more, exhausted the old shops district, and attempted to locate the local history museum/archive, but the street signposts were less than specific and we just ended up walking around town.

It was getting a bit chilly, but not quite dinnertime yet, so we stopped in a café for some macha (bitter, frothy green tea-made in tea ceremonies), sweets, and a hida beef croquette. Hida is the name for the northern region of Gifu prefecture, and it is famous for its high quality beef. There wasn’t much beef in the croquette, but it was still tasty and warm. The matcha was tasty, but I was surprised by the gelatin-like sweets, one of which was made from a pumpkin-esque local vegetable, and tasted decent. The other one was tomato based, and was less than pleasant to consume. Super sweet, sugary tomato flavor does not work well at all. After warming back up we thought of maybe heading south of the station to check out the folk village, but it would have been cutting it close with our train back to Gero and we were sick of walking in the snow, so we found a place for dinner. Ended up being lackluster, so I don’t have much to say about it. We headed back to the station and waited for the train.

Due to our late start, we were forced to take an express (read: faster, but more expensive) train up north to Takayama. In order to save a bit of money, we took the slower, local train from Takayama to Gero. This ended up being an interesting choice. As you may imagine, the local train doesn’t get a whole lot of the touristy type, they generally stay on the express trains. No, our train was mainly filled with high school students. We grabbed an open double seat, which happened to be facing another empty double seat (ideally for groups of 4, but that’s all that was left). About a minute before the train was to leave and older man motioned for the seat across from us and I told him “go ahead” in Japanese. This prompted him to look me up and down, and ask me quizzically, “So you understand Japanese?” The thought of faking horribly broken Japanese and saying I didn’t speak very well had crossed my mind, but I thought maybe he just wanted to ask a couple questions, and gave him the benefit of the doubt.
I ended up talking to this dude for the entire hour-long train ride, and translating select excerpts for Maria. He started out normally, with standard questions of where do you live? and what brings you up north? Then he went into how he was visiting some friends, and that that’s how old people have fun and enjoy themselves. Meet up with old friends over tea or dinner and just see they’re still doing all right. I told him I basically understood that idea of fun, and did a lot of smiling and agreeing with whatever he said. We kept talking and he asked if I drank sake at all. I told him I enjoy sake every once in awhile, at which point he tells me he travels with a bottle of sake, and drinks it whenever he is thirsty, as if it was tea. Those were his exact words. Then he pulled the bottle out of his backpack and showed me how he had it disguised in a cloth bag so folks don’t know he’s drinking. It was around here that I started getting a tinge of regret for not faking horrible Japanese. He didn’t seem too terribly drunk at the time, but I made a mental note that I was probably dealing with a crazy.
He then surprised me again by asking if Maria was my wife. Umm…what? He then explained his unexpectedly lucid reasoning: Maria had a ring on the designated “wedding finger.” Apparently it’s the only finger the ring fits on, but still, that could (and did) lead to some confusion. I explained she was just visiting for a couple weeks during her winter vacation and he then proceeded to grill me on where I had taken her and what aspects of Japanese culture I had introduced her to. I thought he’d be pleased when I told him when properly went to a shrine on New Year’s, rang the bell, prayed for good fortune and what not. He nodded and then asked if we had eaten Zoni soup, a special soup with rice paste in it that is traditionally supposed to be eaten as the clock strikes midnight. again for good fortune or health, etc. I don’t know how to make the stuff, so obviously Wallin and Maria had gone without, and may now potentially be doomed with bad luck. Good thing I bought those charms at the shrine!
Apparently that oversight was unacceptable and the guy started chewing me out a bit (not super seriously, but I was still taken aback a bit), saying “What the hell were you doing?! “You have to have her eat that!” “Geez, what were you thinking?” etc. etc. Then he proceeded to tell me month by month what are the traditional Japanese ways of having fun, and how Maria should experience them. February-Plum blossoms, March-Sakura blossoms, August-Fireworks…I forget what he all said. I don’t think he really caught when I said she was only in the country for a couple weeks. I just smiled and nodded, eventually earning some points back by talking about how we were heading to Gero for the hot springs. In the end, I’m quite glad the old dude was there and that I talked to him, because he pointed out for us when we stopped at Gero station. It was dark (about 8pm) so I couldn’t recognize it from the scenery or see any signs. And being the local train, they must assume you already know the order of the stops by memory, because they sure as heck aren’t announcing the train stops at all. So yeah, thank you old boozer, or we may have ended up way off course.

What to do when visiting Japan? Eat, that's what.

Sadly, the next day already marked Wallin’s departure. He was to fly out at 12:45pm, so we actually had to get up at a decent hour to take him to the airport. As per usual, Nagoya airport was not at all busy, and so we had time to grab some chicken curry for lunch at a café in the airport. We were all pretty delirious with hunger, and at the point where we would say (and then laugh at) the most ridiculous things. I even made Maria cry she was laughing so hard. And I pretty much take pride in any time I make Maria cry (irrelevant of the number of tears). I also managed to snap a decent shot of Maria and Wallin.

...and then another in which the main attraction is Maria’s freakishly large hand. Notice how it is bigger than her head?! Yikes, that's unfortunate.

After lunch, we escorted Wallin to security check-in and said our goodbyes. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t sad to see him go. Wallin was of course playing it tough, but he kept looking back and waving or smiling even after he cleared security, so I know that fool was bawling his eyes out the minute he turned the corner…that or the minute he realized he was back in Korea. Ouch.
So our merry band of revelers was down to two, and it felt a bit lonely walking through the airport back to the train terminal. I was very grateful that Maria was staying for well over 2 weeks, unlike like some folks cough Annie cough, as Wallin’s 5-day stint seemed all too short. With Wallin on his way back to the land of kimchee, Maria and I decided to stop in Nagoya, in hopes of hitting up my favorite ramen place. Sadly, there were still closed for the New Year’s holiday, so instead we wandered randomly around Nagoya for awhile, with Maria supposedly satisfied “just to be in Japan.” I sometimes forget that all of this is new to other people. I think especially since I’m in the same region as when I studied abroad. When I go back to Nagoya, it’s not a big city that puts stars in my eyes, it is simply my old stomping grounds. And the novelty of being in Japan has worn off for me a bit (the novelty of really awesome food, however, has not), so that I sometimes forget to just look around and enjoy being here. Anywho, we essentially walked around with no destination, to the point where I was turned around, and our plan became to hopefully stumble upon a subway station. We did also happen upon this sign for a Japanese-French restaurant with "good" food. Don't want to know what the quotes are for...

And after an hour or so of strolling, we came up another subway stop, and made our way back to Nagoya station, where I took the chance to take Maria to the same miso pork cutlet place I had taken Wallin a few days earlier. After dinner we headed back to the O-gak (one of our affectionate nicknames for Ogaki) and watching Anthony Bourdain:No Reservations on Netflix while staying warm under the kotatsu (table with blanket and heating element underneath) and the nearby space heater (for those who don’t know, there is no central heating in my apartment).

The main goal of the trip for Maria was to eat lots of delicious food, Japanese or otherwise. So most days I worked involved Maria occupying herself for the day either by 1) Being lazy around the apt. 2) Wandering around Ogaki 3) Taking a trip to Nagoya and hopefully not getting lost. Then when I got back the main issue was where to grab dinner. I wanted her to have a proper spread of Japanese food, plus try the local gems that do other cuisine really well. A number of times, our quest for food brought us into Nagoya. One such night I went straight from work to the train station and met up with Maria and Lauren in Sakae (the happening, entertainment district of Nagoya) and went to dinner at Yama-chan, a chicken-wing chain restaurant/bar that is practically an institution in Nagoya…that I had actually never been to before. Overall, it was pretty decent, and it was an “izakaya” style place, which means you order a bunch of small plates of food to share between everyone. The food itself was good, and their famed chicken wings were tasty (probably due to the MSG, but hey, I’m not above that). The burdock root fries were also quite yummy. Then a poster up on the wall caught my eye, they had a “red miso lager” beer for sale by the bottle. It was overpriced, but I had to try it.

I can’t say I tasted the miso, but overall the beer was tasty, and much better than all the light beer that is most popular over here. I kind of felt bad for the Japanese couple that got put at the table next to us in the little room, since we weren’t exactly quiet. At the same time, Yama-chan is not the place you go to for a quiet dinner, and they took it well in stride. After dinner, we bummed around Sakae a bit more and took Maria to a game center (read: arcade) to do purikura (photo booth.) The basic idea is that you pick your background, take a number of pictures in front of a green screen, making the most ridiculous faces you can in body positions that make sense with the background (i.e. green pipes a la the Mario games, etc.). After having managed to get rid of all of your dignity in this fashion, you get to go around to the computer screen on the side of the booth, and insert clip art and write messages on the pictures with the touchpens. The goal, or at least standard practice, is to put so much additional crap on the photo that you can barely see people’s faces. Maria was suffering from sensory overload just from the arcade atmosphere, and was like a deer in headlight when she first sat down with the touchpen. After a few minutes, she got the hang of it and had the pictures properly covered with stars, sparkles, and, of course, the steaming pile o’ poop graphic. Once we had printed the photographic evidence of our collective insanity, we decided to call it a night. We all still had train rides back home and work the next day (well, at least Lauren and I).
We managed to make it to Nagoya again, and this time my favorite ramen place was open. I’m quite proud of this place and wanted Maria to try it. It’s a hole in the wall place that seats maybe 12 people, and the kitchen area is larger than the seating area. Their specialty is “spicy miso garlic butter ramen” and Maria was quickly a fan. In fact, that became her favorite meal of the entire trip. Excellent, yet another convert.

At another place we went to, I ended up trying a black sesame based ramen, which was pretty darn amazing as well. We also ended up going to Masala Master, and also made a trip to Bellmart, the Brazilian restaurant/market, with Jon and Sarah. We go there often enough so that the guy who works at the restaurant recognizes Jon, Sarah, and I. We pretty much always order a can of Guarana with our meal, and this time when we paid our bill, the guy just handed us a bag with 4 cans of Guarana, on the house. I always knew he was awesome beforehand, this just verifies it.
Jon's forehead wrinkles (@Bellmart)

Sarah's favorite Asian pose (also @Bellmart)