A highly enjoyable weekend

Had a great weekend. My school had it's Toukonsai (Sport's Day) on Friday -- which I'll get to later -- and that meant an enkai (party) for the teachers afterwards. It was held at the Hida Hotel in a big tatami-mat room. The Principal and two Vice-Principals sat at one end of the room, and the teachers sat on the ground in two long lines against the walls. Everyone had a pillow, a back rest and a lovely wooden tray filled with beautiful dishes of food. The second-year teachers were responsible for organizing the party, so they started off serving people drinks. Everyone had a small glass of something (it was red, sweet and alcoholic) to start off the party with a 'kampai' (cheers), and then the beer, sake and oolong tea started flowing. In Japan you never pour yourself a drink, someone else does it for you which means everyone talks to everyone else. It was great fun but I was quite frustrated at not being able to speak Japanese. Women in kimono were continually taking away dishes and replacing them. All the food was small, colourful, delicate and beautiful. And delicious. The teacher's got to relax and simply chat and enjoy themselves. The strict rules and unspoken codes of the workplace vanished. We sang songs, drank, ate, chatted, drank and played our own 'sport's day' games. At the end I got tossed up in the air as a 'welcome to the family' sort of thing - and was nearly dropped on my head. Then some of the younger teachers continued on to a bar/lounge for the 'second party' -- that's really what it's called -- and I was given excellent whisky, many compliments and a taste of real japanese karaoke. Good times were had by all.

On Sat. I went to one of the morning markets along the banks of the Miyagawa river: I bought cucumbers, potatos, onions, tsukemono (japanese pickled vegetables) and some pretty cuttings of something that resembled holly. I ran into my friend Becca, and we arranged to meet later in the afternoon to do one of the 'temple walks' in Takayama. We ended up visiting about 7 or 8 temples and shrines, and eventually found ourselves in a sort of garden tea-house decorated with a mix of japanese antiques (think 1920s typewriters and attache cases, japanese farm house antiques, beautiful old fans and french china dolls - it was incredibly surreal and we decided that we'd actually fainted from heat stroke and were in fact either face down on the road somewhere or in someone's backyard drinking from their garden hose). We 'hiked' through the lovely, forested Shiroyama park, made our way back through the old historic section of town (where we pretended to be tourists and samples the miso and sake), had dinner at a cheap but delicious izakaya (with an entertaining English menu) and ended the day with fruit and chocolate cake at a tea shop overlooking the Miyagawa river.

On Sunday Becca and our friend Fletcher had planned to go hiking. We left Takayama at 6:30am, bought snacks and lunch at a combini (convenience store) and drove about one hour north-east to a mountain whose name is something like 'Fukiji'. Our guide book said it took 4 hours to complete and was pretty much a steep incline the entire way. It was absolutely a steep incline and the day was hot and humid. Fortunately it was heavily forested so we weren't walking in the direct sunlight. Full of youthful, genki energy we set out and passed many groups of hikers no younger than 65 (!). We were sweating and breathless before long, but we kept on going and eventually reached the 'peak'. In less than one hour. There were some beautiful views, and it was great training, but it was something of a disappointment. I think we were looking for something that climbed higher than the tree-line. But in the end it was enjoyable and we were glad we came. The second trail we'd planned on hiking was closed so we ended up having lunch beside a waterfall and then spending the afternoon at an onsen. Then it was back to Takayama for dinner at a sushi restaurant and then 'Purikura' (short for 'Print Club'; you grab your friends and take all sorts of silly pictures in a picture booth with crazy backgrounds, and then add all sorts of embelishments. I'll post some pictures later). I was going to go to sleep early, but I ended up going to Red Hill (a local bar) to return a movie the owner had leant me and so I stayed for a drink. Just one.

As the post title suggests, it was a highly enjoyable weekend. Now here are some pictures:

Becca inspecting the trail in the midst of some beautiful cedar trees

The top of the 'mountain'! Becca is less than impressed.

The view from the top of the mountain

Me and Becca beside our waterfall

Me, Fletcher and Becca. We went and soaked in an Onsen next and it was delicious.