more pix

Okay, so we didn't end up exchanging photo data before he left, but I'll probably post some of the best ones later on.


So Gray and I set out from Gifu and headed north. It wasn't long before we could see snow-capped mountains, something I hadn't seen in Western Japan.



Having Gray around made me appreciate the scenery again, so I'll post one of the views from the road. This is pretty typical rural Japan.


Right so the weirdest part of the first day was this:

This is the 日本まん真ん中 exact center of Japan (at least by population in 1990). The building is also a giant sundial with numbers in the parking lot. Inside there's a bunch of art and a community center. Also, that needle goes all the way down to a map of Japan:


Then, as you know, we made it to Gujo Hachiman, a cute historic town. The Youth Hostel was also a temple and a day care center, but was closed. Not exactly sure why but it involved the most intense apology i've ever seen. But then it turned out we could camp by the river. The next morning looked like this:

Be sure to ask Gray about his electric bath.