8 November 2017
I have seen all of it
The view from the Gifu observation tower
I am confident I have now seen all there is to see in Gifu. Time to move on to Yokohama tomorrow.
To assist in ensuring everyone can see all of Gifu, the government has built the largest building in the city, and made the top floor observation deck free.
I went up there, and I was the only person up there. Strangely they have installed what appears to be frosted glass, which impacts the photo quality as you will see below.
From the observation tower, I saw a mall, so I guess it was time to head to the mall. I shouldnt have bothered. It had nowhere to eat except mcdonalds, and exactly 4 shops! Book-off, Uniqlo, Tsutaya and a supermarket, and enough car parking for 10,000 cars.
The top floors of the former shopping mall were now all English language learning schools and dentists.
Not to worry, I headed back to the station area and found a vegetarian buffet! Not as good as the FANTASTIC Taiwanese ones, but still good.
Paying for it was quite an ordeal, just like in Taiwan you pay by weight, but this place was a self check out machine that weighed it and made you put cash in. Sounds easy enough, but then it was asking me questions about rice, soup, green tea etc and I had to pick various options.
Eventually the cleaning grandma came and helped me, I think it made her day.
Then finally, I decided my dinner was virtually calorie free so celebrated with a green tea and red bean ice cream. Which was way more ice than cream. I have regrets!
The view from the 43rd floor. My building at home has more floors and seems small compared to many around it.
Here in Japan, 43 seems really high. Thats the train station below.
Some more view. That other big building is also owned by the city government.
Last of the view pics. It was really hard to take decent photos through the glass.
Next up, we head to the crappy mall. There was a highway overpass to take a photo from. Its not really up to the standard of the Tennnoji one from the other day in Osaka.
There was nothing else to see in the mall other than perusing the fantastic selection of second hand goods in book-off. They sell lots of second hand clothes also, its hard to tell many are second hand.
I had no idea what this place is, but they rolled out the red carpet for me.
And here is the building I was taking photos from the top of earlier. It was now starting to get foggy again.
My vegetarian buffet dinner. It was a fun activity.
I bought my ice cream from a gigantic up market supermarket. This is their curry powder / paste / spice block aisle. I couldnt fit it all in the shot. Do Japanese people eat curry every night?
And the rain started to fall just as I got back to the roofed streets once more. This might be the last ever photo you see of Gifu in your life. Remember it for its many roofs!