I recently had the chance to visit my friends Mike and Natsumi who were in Japan for a wedding. I was happy to have the chance to go and see them so I spent an afternoon in Okazaki, Aichi-ken, Natsumi’s hometown.

We met at the station and went to go see the castle in Okazaki. It was a museum inside, loaded with some interesting artifacts. You can even check out the swords that your favorite historical anime characters may have used. I’ve got to say, nothing says ‘historical museum’ like anime. Gotta keep the kids interested, i suppose!

From there, we went back to Natsumi’s family’s home, who were very welcoming and it was great having a talk with them. Her father tried his best to explain Rakugo to me but I’m afraid I need a little bit more studying to understand.

Afterwards, we had some dinner at an izakaya-like place, where they served some of the freshest fish I’ve ever eaten, as in the head of the fish was still moving when the sashimi was served. I’ve got to say, it was amazing. I know nothing about fish names but I am building a list of fish I like. This fine ‘aji’ fish’s head and bones were then fried after we had finished the sashimi and was a delicious crispy treat, though I let other people handle eating the head. Still not very appetizing to me, but maybe some day.

The next day, we took a trip to Gujo Hachiman, a town in Gifu prefecture. We started out at this cool (interesting and also temperature-wise) limestone cave. Where we explored and had some lunch. There were a ton of school kids in groups there as well, so I was worried this might be educational, but it turns out it was just some really neat caves! Afterwards, we had lunch in a restaurant that had some kind of grass-like roof, and by that I mean it looks like a roof from several hundred years ago. We cooked some tasty meat and vegetables yakiniku style on a big stone. Gallery here.

When we were finished there, we went into the town proper. This is a small castle town that is famous for its canals and a summer festival, which had just ended. The town is built on a river, and has canals that run water to the nearby houses, which they still use for cleaning rice, vegetables, and laundry (though they are not allowed to use soaps). It was a quiet and beautiful little town, and had a huge river where you could watch people with extremely long fishing poles fish. We toured the town for a while, until it got close to 5, which is when, like many small towns, things start shutting down. Gallery here.

Afterwards, we briefly stopped in Nagoya so I could catch the shinkansen back to Osaka. There we had an amazing dinner at another izakaya, this one served lots of Nagoya specific foods, which I learned means foods that are covered in miso! I never especially liked miso before this, but it was incredible. There were pork skewers that were covered in some kind of miso sauce that were to die for. I was too busy eating to take a picture.

It was a great trip, and there was both lots of amazing sightseeing and great food, and it was also great to see Mike and Natsumi again. I’ll have to go back again some time.