Farewell Nagoya. I'd like to say you'll be missed...but I can't...because you won't. There are some places that you realise that you will probably never see again in your lifetime, and Nagoya is one of those places.

Not that I completely hated our time in Nagoya. Nabana No Sato illumination was spectacular, and Nagashima Spa Land was a fantastic day. The city itself just isn't a place where you'd go for fun from what I can see. There is Nagoya castle, and a few other touristy bits dotted around, but it isn't enough to lure you from most other Japanese cities I've been to.

Our stay in the Nishiasahi guesthouse was ok. The hosts were a fantastic young couple running the guesthouse, and the cafe restaurant downstairs, and appeared to have a great time doing it. They have a great little business going for themselves. Strangely, they appear to live inside the crawlspace in a cupboard accessible via the bathroom. Seriously, they live in a door approximately 1m x 1m, which is raised nearly 6ft off the floor, accessible via a ladder, inside the bathroom. It's weird. When I first saw the guy coming out of this house-hole, I thought it was someone breaking in.


But guesthouses just aren't for us. It has taught us that we value our own bathroom, and privacy, and quiet, more than I think we realised before booking this holiday. As a result, since we have 4 nights in Yokohama at the end of the stay at another guesthouse similar to the one we just stayed at, I investigated other options. I found that, on 3 of the 4 nights we needed to stay, there was a Disney partner hotel available, for not a lot more money than we were going to be paying for the hostel. The Disney hotel gave us 5 beds (not on the floor!), our own bathroom and shuttle transfers to and from Disneyland, rather than the 1 hour train it would have been from our Hostel in Yokohama. Needless to say I booked it. I would have liked to stay for the 4th night there, but they were booked out. I tried booking a Toyoko Inn in Yokohama, but the website was not working, so I left that, and decided that since we were checking into a Toyoko Inn tonight, we'd just book it as we were checking in.

We bid farewell to our Nishiasahi hosts, gave them some Australiana presents like pens and keychains and clip on Koalas, which made the girl in particular very happy. We posed for a photo for their visitor wall, and were on our way.

Rain. Like yesterday, lots and lots of rain. We made it to the main street heading for Nagoya station, and did like the Japanese natives do, and headed underground to the network of subway and shopping tunnels that lead to Nagoya station. Starbucks on a rainy day was predictably full to capacity, so we just made a beeline directly for the train platform.

An easy 25 minute train ride saw us arrive at Gifu city station. Again, still raining. After a quick stop into the Gifu city information office for maps and discount vouchers for the ropeway, we were on our way to the hotel.

The Toyoko Inn in Gifu, like all other Toyoko Inns we've ever stayed in, is remarkably close to the train station, and just as easy to check into as we remembered.
Comforting to know that they haven't beefed up their security arrangements since we first visited them back in 2008. You can leave your bags with them in the foyer of the hotel, and to ensure that nobody steals them they lay a net over them, with bells on the net. Apparently this is a foolproof security system, since they're still using this method 9 years later.

Leaving the bags at the hotel, and my jacket since it was raining, but actually quite warm, we walked back to the train station and jumped on a bus headed North to Gifu park, which is at the base of the mountain where Gifu castle is situated. Gifu Castle is a pretty amazing example of a Japanese castle, not because of the castle itself, which is just average, but because of where it is. It sits atop a very high, and very steep mountain, with 360 degree views of the surrounding countryside.

When we arrived at Gifu park, the view of the castle was, in a word, nonexistent. We could see approximately half way up the mountain, after that, the mountain disappeared into cloud. No sweeping vistas of the surrounding countryside for us today then.

Since it was raining, only very slightly when we arrived at the park, the entire park was predictably, completely empty. And very, very picturesque. Water falls and manicured gardens abounded, and cherry trees in full bloom were scattered throughout the park. The fog hanging in the air gave it all a very mysterious atmosphere as well.

Onto the ropeway, and boarded with about 6 other people as silly as us, intent on heading up to the top of a mountain they couldn't even see through the cloud.

Surprisingly, when we reached the top of the mountain, we could actually see a little bit of the surrounding countryside.

A major baseball game was just commencing in the stadium a few kilometers from the base of the mountain, and the pre-game celebrations were in full swing. Strangely, from right up on top of the mountain every chant and every drum beat could be heard extremely clearly, as could the chants of the crowd, as they echoed across the valley floor and up the side of the mountain.

We made the short hike to the castle, which was quite pretty, especially with the fog hanging around. Again, we had the whole path to ourselves, as I'd estimate there was only about 20 other people on the entire mountain.

On the final approach to the castle overlooking Gifu city, as if by some act of whatever deity it is that lives on this mountain, the cloud briefly opened up. We were treated to views of the entire valley, and views across to the mountains on the other side of the valley, also ringed by cloud. This view however lasted merely minutes, and we were soon enveloped in thick cloud once again.

After the walk to the castle was done, we opted not to take any of the muddy, and quite frankly dangerous looking walking trails heading off in different directions down each side of the mountain, and instead we backtracked towards the ropeway.

At the ropeway, is a squirrel village. This "village" is quite simply a large cage where you pay a few dollars, are given a garden glove, and you are shown a sign which explains that you must not:
* Kick the squirrels
* Shout at the squirrels
* Grab the squirrels and squeeze until they die
* Smack the squirrels on the head with an open hand

What else is there left to do with a squirrel?

When you enter, they give you a single garden glove. As I found out, even if you say that you don't want one, they insist on giving you one. I was there on photography duty. Nothing more. Veronica actually just stayed outside in the non squirrel peacefulness of the ropeway station.

Squirrels dont impress me much. Each human was given a mound of breadcrumb looking stuff into their gloved hand, and when that happened the squirrels would come running up to them madly, devour the mystery substance, before sprinting back off again to join it's equally skittish friends. As I was standing there photographing and videoing the girls feeding the stupid things, the odd squirrel would run up my leg to see if I was holding anything to eat, and discovering that I didn't, would run back down me again to seek out another, better stocked human.

I can see why the sign specifically said not to kick the squirrels. Was tempting.

The lady was also very sparing with her squirrel food. Charlotte asked for some more, and she made a lot of very concerned and pained Japanese sounding noises, before I reminded her, by shaking my glove at her that I hadn't put on my hand at all, that we had actually paid to get in here and she still owed me at least one more pinch of squirrel chow to make up for the feeding that I wasn't going to do.

Not sure why she was so mean with it. There was probably a total of about 4 other people in the park for the entire time we were there, so it isn't like we were denying anyone else the opportunity to feed the stupid wet squirrels. For the majority of the time we were in the cage, we were the only ones there. At one stage she left her tin of squirrel foodstuff unguarded, and I almost made it over there but she came back into the cage. Had I made it to her tin undetected, there would have been some very well fed squirrels on that mountain today.

Down to the bottom of the ropeway, and after shopping for souvenirs we caught the bus back to Gifu station. Walking around the city we tried in vein to find somewhere which interested us to eat, but nothing really grabbed our attention. So stopping into a supermarket for bento boxes, a Vie De France breadshop for some fantastic bread products, and into 2 different convenience stores for deserts, we headed back to the hotel.

Tomorrow, we make one of the longest train journeys of the trip, to Kanazawa, on the North coast. We have 4 nights there, and we're not exactly sure what we're going to do there on all of the days, but I've got no doubt we'll find something. Probably involving a hell of a lot of walking if it is anything like the days so far.