Who wears short shorts?

This weekend brought with it an exciting journey to the grand, yet overly concretized city known as Gifu City. Not, I give you, the most original of names, but I wasn't consulted on the matter, so please don't hold it against me; I'm just the protagonist. Gifu city is well known for nothing that I can think of - it is the largest city in Gifu (with 200,000 people) and has a gigantic fireworks festival. Which is what I'd come down to see.

First off, lets have a round of applause for Alyson taking the train BY HERSELF to Gifu; not getting lost in any of the three stations and saying sumimasen when need be. As Maruyama-san (my 29 year old supervisor - hilarious) said "maybe... maybe it is easy".

At the Gifu station, a rendez-vous with other JETs in the area (though none from my region), but really with Chris and Jon, who were the only ones I'd gotten to know. I'll admit, I was over-joyed to speak (and rapidly) and to have some company. This is going to be a very lonely place in the winter. So I invited myself to stay with either on them; Chris offered his floor, for which I was grateful (at the time anyway). Anyway, we hopped on a bus and took off for the river, where we were to watch a two hour long firework display. All the time, the heavens were threatening to come crashing down upon us. Hiroshima prefecture was being hit by a typhoon, and we were expected to get the tail end of it. On to a bus, off onto a long walk down the river, but finally to the best seats in the house - right across from the fireworks set off points. Jon and I mozied (how does one spell that) off to the conbeni to buy some beer and food (though I forgot the food) got rained on. I very much regretted wearing a white shirt and skirt. It was all a little too clingy for my liking. By the time we got back, the fireworks were about to start and we settled into the hill for what we thought would be the best view.

Have you ever noticed how rain runs downhill? And pools on the plateaux? I now have first hand experience of this miraculous scientific phenomenon.

Ten minutes after the fireworks started (and bloody amazing they were - Canada Day will suck from now on), there was rain. No, see, rain is for chumps. We had typhoon weather. The Japanese being used to this (September is typhoon season), the fireworks continued - there were even these ones that zipped off in all different directions. Jon took like 90 photos, so, again, hopefully I can get a few of his... once I learn how to post things on the internet. I was wet enough that the umbrella stopped being popped up. There was just no point. The advantage of being wet is you're not stinking hot. Though, after 3 hours of being damp, it had lost its charm by the end of the night. Afterwards, the three of us, plus Ruth (a girl from Ireland) got ourselves very lost on the way back to the train station. So that was the hour long tour of Gifu city. I slept on Chris' floor. I think, perhaps, I was little premature in calling him brotherly. I don't plan on staying there again. No worries though, next time I'll try to be a little bit more observant.

I came back early on Sunday morning, and crashed at my house for 15 minutes before Maruyama-san called to ask me if I wanted to go cell phone shopping. So I did. Made myself some penne with bolognese sauce (ie tomato and meat), which tasted fantastic after all this deep fried goodness that they eat here. How do Japanese girls manage it, I wonder.

Today, I spent the morning observing and then participating in the Japanese Tea Ceremony. I think they want me to spend the rest of the week taking classes with the other students. The elementary ones are particularly funny and very excited to see me. Anyway, I'm going to finish eating my tuna salad and rice filled seaweed... glad I made extra pasta sauce!