Gifu

Continuing on with my recent trip from Japan. After Hiroshima, Kim and I jumped on a Shinkansen and head to Nagoya to make our way to Gifu. At Nagoya JR Station, nothing had changed and it was exactly how I remembered. We headed straight for platform 5/6 to catch the next train to Gifu!


I was really excited at this stage as this was one of the main reasons I wanted to go back to Japan. I just wanted to see my friends. When we got to Gifu JR station I headed straight to the bus stop which takes us to the university but to my surprise it wasn't there anymore, the bus now leaves from a different stop, no biggie. I got to the university and walked to the kaikan (student dorms) and dropped off our luggages at Terry's place since he was there for ICS. Got to say hi to some old friends, scored a couple of bikes and headed to Masa (local shopping centre) before meeting more friends later on in the night for dinner.

Not many photos were taken as Kim and I just wandered around, feeling all nostalgic and killing time before dinner. When it was time we headed back to the kaikan, I realised how unfit I was again, the ride wasn't as easy as I remembered it to be, maybe it was just the cold. Returning the bikes Kim and I made our way to Mini Stop, as I was approaching I could see a bunch of people waiting out the front and as I got closer they all turned around and I had the biggest smile on my face. It was so nice to see them all again, it had been nearly a whole year since I had left but it as though I had never left. We all caught up over an amazing dinner organised by Hazuki and all expenses were paid for. It was a very memorable night, all of us together again in the one place - it was great!


Fast forward a couple of days and it was Christmas morning, the night before we were all hoping for a white Christmas but it didn't snow. To all of our surprises we woke up to this amazing view. It snowed about 20cm overnight and it was beautiful!


Thanks to our good friend Mai, we were able to stay at her place and she was kind enough to be our chauffeur for the time we were in Gifu. First order of the day was breakfast and again I met up with a couple of good friends for curry at Coco Ichci/Curry House - my favourite restaurant in Japan.


When I first saw this my heart sank. This is where Coco Ichi used to be but it had closed down, I spent quite a bit of time there having dinner with friends and now it was closed. So I was quite sad seeing it like this.


Fortunately they only relocated across the road so I was all smiles again! The restaurant now looks newer and cleaner but I still like the old one more, it had much more character and I have a lot of good memories there from when I first got to Gifu to when I left.


Later on in the day Kim and I just headed to Malera, another shopping centre, to chill as Gifu was meant to be our down time during this trip and we were just taking it easy, nothing too crazy. Most of our time was spent spending time with friends, drinking and playing games in my good friend Sana's apartment, Carlos came up with a crazy spoon game and it was very amusing watching people get injured accidently from it. I think Sana threw away all them spoons afterwards too haha.


That night was going to be our last night in Gifu, so we headed to our usual joint for Indian food! This place has great service and more importantly, great food. Luckily Mai drove us there so we were saved from having to ride bicycles for 30 minutes through the snow. Thanks Mai!

The next morning we woke up, dropped by the kaikan one last time hoping to catch Matsuoka-San, the caretaker to drop off some Tim Tams and to have a quick catch up before I headed off. It was nice to see him again, he's very surprised that I was still able to speak Japanese very well and was worried that I would have forgotten it all already. Funnily Mai told me the same thing when we went out one night too.

We then got dropped off at the station and waited for our bus to head to the lovely Takayama next. This is probably the most memorable part stop of this trip, just being with friends again and catching up like I hadn't even left was a great feeling and I miss it everyday. But I'm glad I got to catch up with everyone before they went back to their country, Carlos being one of them since he's back home in Guatemala now.

Next is Takayama! It won't be posted for a while since it's exam period and I'm actually meant to be doing work now haha.