Trip to Gifu with Zenji & Friends

Once again, I had received a message from my friend Zenji a week prior, asking if I was interested in going to Gifu with Zenji and his friends for a little road trip adventure. I told him I was more than interested, and when I asked what I should bring, Zenji said "all you need to bring is passion!!!", and declined to provide me with futher details. Very mysterious, so I just figured I'd show up and see how the day went. After all, with school being over, at this point I didn't have much going on, and exploring parts of Japan that you could only get to via car with a big group to split costs seemed ideal.

The plan was to meet at Kyoto station at 7:00 AM sharp, when I made my way to the meeting location, I saw no Zenji, but about seven people gathered in a circle. I asked if they were all there for Zenji, and they told me yes. We exchanged names and countries while we waited, and in total 15 people showed up for the trip! We all grabbed McDonalds from the station before splitting into two different vans for transportation. From Kyoto station, we drove about three hours, up north and to the east, past Lake Biwa after driving through the city of Otsu. We made it to some mountains and drove up quite far into them, beyond my phone's service range, to a small dirt parking lot.

The lot was packed however, because this establishment was extremely popular. At this little mountain escape, you could go fishing in small ponds to catch your own lunch! We all tried our luck, and after about an hour I had caught two small fish, so I brought them to the counter where I paid for them to be fried up. Interestingly, using this method, you eat the entire fish, tail and all, which was actually quite good because of the crunchy texture.

After eating, some of group had discovered there was a trail that led to a small hike with some cool pools and waterfalls, so I went exploring with two of them. We spent some time at the first pool, just dipping our feet in the water. It was the perfect temperature for swimming, and I kept thinking that I should have brought my swimsuit to enjoy the water. We hiked up a series of very steep stairs and ladders, going past more pools and waterfalls until we reached the top of the trail.

We didn't stay at the top of the hike for long though, because we realized we were late for our dinner reservation! We scrambled back down the trail to find the rest of our group already seated for dinner at the tables. At this location, I was able to experience 流しそうめん, which literally translates to "flowing noodles". At these tables, noodles are sent into a bamboo trough filled with water and pumped around. You then use your chopsticks to catch the noodles, lift them out of the water, and dip them into some seasoned broth before eating! Nagashi somen had been on my list of things to do in Japan, but I hadn't expected to actually cross it off my list.

After dinner, we took the cars to the next destination, a little tourist destination centered around a cave system you could tour through. These caves reminded me a lot of the Lewis and Clark caverns that I had visited long ago back in Montana with my siblings and Grandma Lynn. The air was almost chilly inside, a nice break from the 90 degree plus weather outside. Some of the highlights of the cave walk through included this rock that looked a lot like a upside down chicken, a statue carved into the wall, and a fountain that poured from the ceiling of one of the larger rooms!

Our final stop was this small shrine that was pretty much just in the middle of a valley. There was a small gift shop, and one house with a field of rice nearby, otherwise that was it. W We checked out the shrine as it got dark, and all got a few things from the gift shop before finally heading home. I did find a pretty cool Pikachu themed vending machine though, which I was not expecting so far in the middle of the mountains. We didn't make it back to Kyoto until around 11 PM, but I really enjoyed the full-day adventure and seeing Zenji and the gang one last time.