Garish Galavanting in Gifu

Now venturing into October, the oppressive summer heat has finally given way to comfortable fall temperatures (and for Ogaki, fall temps are generally highs in the mid 60s-mid 70s). I didn’t have much planned for this weekend, as the rest of my October was booked up already, but I got a last minute invite from Naomi to hang out on Saturday in Gifu for the Nobunaga festival. We had plans to go to a Kimono show, but both Naomi and I showed up late, so we only caught the second half, but it was still cool. I particularly enjoyed one lady’s kimono that was a red base featuring black clouds with gold lining. There was also an impressive performance where a dozen or so ladies came out in their white under-robes and then did choreographed movements as they simultaneously and methodically put on their kimonos…by themselves. Dang ladies, kudos to you. After that we met up with Regina and her friend Eirik (from Norway) who happens to be traveling the world after graduating from university. We wandered around before finally settling on a place for lunch that Naomi used to frequent. They had a really solid “house bento” with little bits of everything: meat, fish, jellyfish, potatoes, salad, rice, miso soup, egg, konnyaku, and a few other things as well. We then strolled one of the main side streets (yes, I realize that phrasing sounds odd) and stumbled upon a trio getting ready to play some Brazilian music, so we grabbed some beers from a nearby street vendor and watched the performance.



For the last song, they brought in a singer. I assumed she was singing in Portuguese (it was supposed to be Brazilian music after all), but I couldn’t pick out any words and it didn’t “sound” like Portuguese. So I asked Regina, who is Brazilian, if it was Portuguese. She replied with “Isn’t it English?” Umm…no. WTF? What mystery language was she singing in? Despite Naomi’s insistence that it would be “rude” to ask, I decided to go up and get an answer. I made sure to butter her up with compliments before politely inquiring as to what language that last song was in. “Oh, it was Portuguese, couldn’t you tell?” I played it real stupid saying I’d never studied European languages and have no idea. Then I went back and told Regina the news. Needless to say, she was surprised. It can’t be a good sign when native speaker can’t recognize your pronunciation. This is also why, although I enjoying studying languages, I hate starting a new one up because I know I must sound absolutely god-awful to a native speaker, and I feel bad making them listen to me.

Eirik and I posed with this random old truck


We meandered further and ran into a shop that sells donuts with a potato based batter. Naomi recommended them, so we all tried one. Not bad, but there was no sweetening, and the batter itself didn’t have much natural sweetness to begin with, so in my mind, it was struggling to be a donut. At the same time, it perfectly fits the traditional (read: old people) Japanese palette, which tends to prefer a very subtle sweetness, rather than knock your socks off sweet as hell frosting and filling. At the same time, I see plenty of old ladies at Mister Donut. I just know I often hear people complain of things being to sweet, which is somewhat rare in the States I think. We made our way over to Yanagase, the struggling, one-foot-in-the-grave shopping district near Gifu station and I was surprised to see that, thanks to the festival, it was actually pretty packed with people. Apparently that was one of three or so days out of the year where it doesn’t look like a ghost town.

Naomi had mentioned a place that does handmade pork dumplings, and I have passed the place many a time (it has always been closed, or has a ridiculously long line), so I was eager to try it. None of us were too terribly hungry when we got in line, which was fine, because we waited over an hour to get in. And we had arrived right when they opened. With the initial rush in, the line shortened a bit, but then you have to actually wait for people to eat their meal. And with only 2 tables of 4 and maybe 8 counter seats, it was slow going. Like ramen shops, though, the rule of “the smaller the seating capacity, the better the food” applied here. We got to watch one girl making the dumplings through the window, although she seemed less than pleased to be at work. I imagine that has to get pretty dull and monotonous after a while.

I find her facial expression in this shot rather poignant.



When we got close enough to see into the entrance way, I noticed one table of 4 was taken up by a group of 3 ladies who had been there since the place opened. It seemed to them it may as well have been an episode of Sex and the City-chatting, giggling, sipping leisurely from their beers.

Now, nothing wrong with them having a good time, but they were completely oblivious/inconsiderate of the fact that there was a huge line of people waiting outside. Again, with so little seating, it’s like a ramen shop-you get in, you enjoy your food at a reasonable pace, and you get out. I was staring daggers into them as they ordered more food and we were still waiting just outside. Anywho, we finally got in, and yeah, those were some freakin’ awesome dumplings. The things squirted with yummy meat broth/grease when bitten into, and tasted wonderful. Worth the hour long wait? Close. Seeing as I wasn’t hungry when I started waiting in line, and the weather was nice and I could chat with friends, it wasn’t so bad. But I wouldn’t be braving the line myself or in winter anytime soon. The real kicker is that when we got up and left, that table of ladies was still chatting it up. They had even ordered dessert while we were eating. I remember seeing the single dessert item on the menu and thinking, “who the hell orders dessert at a place like this?” Looks like I have my answer.

We ventured out for a few drinks after that, and due to the other three people in the group, we decided to go this wine bar, which looked a bit fancy to me from the outside, but there was a sign outside for glasses of wine at only slightly exorbitant prices. We entered the place and I immediately knew we were in way over our heads. Thankfully nobody else was in the bar, and they surely would’ve been offended at having to breathe the same air as us riff-raff, especially me in my “Cake is Awesome!” T=shirt.

I'm pretty sure this is the epitome of being classy:


The dude working the place was super classy, and was very patient with our boorish behavior. We ended up sharing a bottle of the cheapest stuff they had (which still was not anywhere near what I consider “cheap”) and then were informed that there was a table charge on top of that. So much for the sign outside, geez. Now, to be fair, the table charge did include a couple snacks. Two paper thin slices of some fancy salami, and crackers with three pieces of cheese. Now, the cheese was amazing, don’t get me wrong, but totally not worth the table charge.

Okay, getting a little more classy...

When he brought out the cork for us to sniff, we all just looked at each other, deer in headlights, before starting to laugh at the absurdity of the situation we had gotten ourselves into. And again, the guy at the store was a total pro about it. We made a running gag about how we had to act “sophisticated”, with Eirik and I having a mock conversation about “the riveting polo game at Liverpool the other day” etc etc. In other words, we were failing miserably at our goal. Again, my T-shirt, and Regina’s baseball cap weren’t helping matters. I’m not sure I could ever be filthy rich. I hate uppity places like that. The awesomely delicious food I can get behind, but the atmosphere is suffocatingly stiff. We made it work, though.



We moved onto a more relaxed bar for a much cheaper drink and then hopped to one of Naomi’s favorite bar/cafes. I made the mistake of assuming the fact that I ordered “draft Guiness” from their menu to mean it’d be coming from a tap. Eirik’s eagle eye, however, caught the guy behind the bar pouring our glasses from a can and then using some tap-looking machine to top off the foamy head. Really? You’ve got to kidding me. I was a bit miffed, but Eirik was outraged. If he knew more Japanese, he probably would’ve given the bartender a piece of his mind. I, however, decided I didn’t really feel like making a scene in this otherwise chill bar. And then I had one of those “you’ve been in Japan for too long” moments. If some bar in America tried to pull that crap, I wouldn't this twice about "disturbing the harmony" to complain about the fact that I'm getting ripped off. That doesn’t quite work over here, sadly, and I don’t think those are the kind of international relations or cultural exchanges that the JET program has in mind. After that, we finally called it a night. I made sure to take a lazy Sunday since the rest of my October weekends were already booked.