Mino

As per usual, Adam and I did some exploring this past weekend.  We headed North into the mountains to a little town called Mino.  We had to transfer trains in Ogaki, Gifu, and Mino-Ota. The last train we took was a small little local line train with only two cars that seemed to work more like a bus than a train.  We decided to not stop in Mino itself, but to go two stops past it to Suhara.  We got off at Suhara hoping to find the hiking trail along Kataji gorge and walk into Mino along the river.  The river was a beautiful colour, the sun was shining, it was a beautiful day.  Unfortunately, the station we got off at didn't have a washroom, it didn't even have a building actually, it was more of a bus stop.  As we weren't sure where the gorge was and since I needed to go to the washroom, we stopped in at a white water rafting/kayaking tour shop.  Luckily, the man who owns the shop spoke English well.  Before I continue, I would like to mention that it can be rather difficult to find information in English about rural places.  We asked where Kataji gorge was and he told us that it was about 9 km away. In his great kindness, he offered to give us a ride to the gorge.  We accepted.  Then, he found out that the festival we were going to attend later in the day had the main events around noon.  He then offered to drive us back into Mino town.  We accepted.

So, in the end, we took the train farther than we needed to, only to be driven back to where we needed to go.

Where we got off the train.

We had some lunch and then looked for the festival.  We weren't sure what was going on at the festival (again lack of information in English) except that there was a parade.  Some people approached us as we were looking at our map and asked if we needed help.  In the end, they told us to, "Follow the sound."  We began our walk through the old town.

Where we had our lunch.
The cherry blossom petals were falling like snow.

Mino is a town known for paper making.  I was actually wanting to go to the museum they have where you get to make paper, but it wasn't very accessible without a car.  Because of the paper industry, merchants became very prosperous.  Mino is also famous for it's "Udatsu" which is essentially a fire wall that has a little roof on it. The merchants built these "fancy" udatsu to show off their wealth.  We walked through the old town listening for the "sound."

Udatsu

Old town street

This udatsu is rather scandalous.
This man built one right next to his neighbour's!

One of the many paper lantern shops.

We ended up finding the parade and you can see the pictures.  Basically, there were big floats that adults carried and little floats that kids carried.  Drinking in public is legal in Japan, so generally the people carrying the floats are rather drunk and many people have beer in hand.  As they carry the floats, a person leads the way banging a drum and blowing a whistle.  The people carrying the float then do a "call" back and forth from either side of the float.

At one point, we were sitting down to take a break and this lady walks quickly past us saying the word, "Onigiri."  We see a man carrying a crate of "onigiri" with people crowding around him.  He came and offered us some too.  I guess at this festival they were handing out free food.  Onigiri is a rice triangle/ball that can have an assortment of things on the inside and usually has seaweed on the outside.  The stuff he was giving away didn't look to good and as we had just had lunch we declined.

The floats are really big!

 After we had had our fill of the parade, we went back into the old town and bought paper!  I also bought some green tea ice cream.  I had been wanting to try it for a while since it's rather popular here, so I'm glad I finally did.  It was pretty good too.

As we were shopping, some of the floats came past the shops.  It seemed like after lunch, each float just started doing it's own thing and going wherever it wanted.

After shopping, we went to an art museum.  Mino has a lantern festival in October where people design and make paper lanterns and they are displayed outdoors.  Some of these lanterns are kept and displayed in the art museum.

Art Museum

 Our last stop of the day was to go down by the river where we could see the oldest modern suspension bridge in the world!  So really, I don't know what we saw or if/why it's significant.  What does the "oldest modern" mean to you? So, we saw a suspension bridge, walked across it, and hung out for a bit by the river.  We could see some cherry trees were still in bloom up in the mountains.

On our way to the river, a random float came down the road.
Here we spent time looking for floats, when they were coming to us.

The oldest modern suspension bridge!
Every small town has to be famous for something.

After the river, we headed for the station.  In my great foolishness, I didn't go to the washroom, thinking that I could go at the station.  The station turned out to be like a bus stop again and I was in the same predicament.  Lesson learned, go to the washroom at every opportunity.