The Japanese Rhein

My solo adventure started in the tourist office of Inuyama, a small town near Gifu. With no reservations, I made sure to stop at the offices in the train station so I could avoid wandering the town looking for a hotel. I used a recommendation from Lonely Planet and decided to forgo the youth hostel for a traditional Japanese hotel with a hot spring. The woman in the tourist office didn't speak much English so there were a lot of hand gestures and flipping through my phrasebook. Somehow I got my point across, but by the end the two women working and I were laughing. The woman helping me could not pronounce my last name at all--they have difficulties with the 'sch' sound in English. But she did kept trying and came close at the end. While on the phone was booking tickets for the U-kai fishing (trad. cormorant bird fishing-mostly for tourists now), she said random words in English which I figured out eventually was to describe what I looked like. "Twenty....Brown hair....Beautiful" Sweet. So I wandered through the city to my hotel where I was greeted by two women who spoke no English at all. Let the fun begin. I managed to get by and was brought to my room by a woman dressed in a Kimono. Traditional tatami mat room, entryway, and sitting room. The area I was staying in had almost no restaurant options, so I ducked into a little cafe. The entire menu was unreadable and there were no pictures. I went with my fallback plan--ordering Yakisoba. I know I like it and there isn't too much variance, ie. no surprise octapus tentacles. Barely making it to the boat departing for the cruise and U-Kai fishing, I enjoyed seeing the city by night. Even though it is basically a tourist attraction, it is still very interesting to watch this form of fishing for sweet river fish. One man has 10 trained cormorant bird on ropes. The ropes help him guide the birds and the fire hanging in the basket above illuminates the surface. This causes the birds to be silhouetted and the fish get confused and swim towards the surface. The birds dive to get the fish and the fishing master brings them back into the boat to 'cough up' the fish that have not made it past the bird's throat. Not the most efficient way to fish, but it is an art.

The next day I spent seeing the temples, shrines and castle of Inuyama. The city is built on a bend of the river that could be compared to the Rhein in Germany. Beautiful views from the top level of the castle. The city is small enough that you can see most of it in a couple hours. After that, it was on to Nara.