The Melbourne Club Meeting and Biking Through Western Tarui

So what is this Melbourne Club that I am referring to?  Well, there is a club in the Ogaki area that is interested in Multi-culturalism, learning from other diverse people, having foreigner visitors in the area and providing Tourism opportunities for them, homestay opportunities, etc etc.  Every so often they have a two hour meeting.  I was invited to speak at one of these meetings since I am obviously a foreign person living in Tarui, Japan.  I was nervous for weeks leading up to this event because I thought it was going to be a really formal meeting and my speech wasn’t going to be any good.  But everyone was kind and the meeting was pretty casual.  In fact, the meeting was so casual that after my speech the next special guest to present was a magician. 

So for my speech, I talked about the diverse cultures in Canada and how we try to live together and learn from each other’s differences.  I compared this to my own relationship with my husband, who is Chinese-Canadian and I am not Chinese.  Afterwards, a few of the head members took me for lunch and I had a great time.  There was no need to be worried at all!  Here are some pictures of the meeting:

Here’s the magician:

Here is Mastoshi-san, the person who asked me to do the speech, who drove me to the meeting, and who translated my speech:

Here is the view from the community center where the meeting was held.  (The community hall was up on the mountain, so it was quite a view).

After lunch, I went for my bike ride.  I knew I had limited time, so I only planned to visit one or two sites.  The wind was awful that day.

So, I’m noticing a trend.  It’s interesting because I’m noticing that many temples and shrines are beside schools or parks.  So the first temple I saw was right beside a school, where some students were playing baseball.

One of the temples I finally found (after biking around in circles near a bamboo forest) had this sign in front of it:

Since most of the signs in Japan are usually very cute (even the serious ones), I took a couple of quick photos and got out of there.  What a scary looking bear picture!  They must be quite serious to have such an angry bear sign.  So here are my “quick” photos:

Anyway, here are more sights:

I pass through this gate almost everyday:

I see this building when I bike to Kita Junior High School.  This building stores Tarui’s three main, golden shrines used for celebrations and festivals.  Here is a picture of the building followed by a picture I took of the shrine several months ago at a local festival:

Here is the famous Tarui Spring that I pass on my way to work if I’m going to Kita Junior High.  It’s about a five minute walk from my house.  Here are some photos I have of it with Erik:

As you can see, there are some girls skipping at the shrine in this picture.

The thing about that temple and the natural spring is that there are always kids playing there.  They play tag, jump-rope, they ride their bikes around that area (despite the fact that they’re on a busy road with a blind corner, in my opinion), so I always enjoy biking past this temple so that I can see the children play and hear their laughter…even if there is a blind corner and I have to be really careful when I turn onto the next street.

Here is a picture of the Tarui Town Office/Hall.  (Notice the tower):

Everyday at 7:00 and noon, the tower chimes.  And everyday at 5:00pm (or 6:00pm in the spring and summer time), the tower plays a different tune and gives it’s daily announcement.  Here is a recording of the announcement:

This tower is also used to give the town important messages.  For example, it was used when we had a couple of typhoons going through the Tarui area.  And, yes, this is the tower that woke me up at 6:30am Sunday morning in August.  If you don’t know what I’m talking about, please check out my other blog post from August with “6:30am” in the title.  Funny story!

Here is a picture of the Tarui School Board, which is right across from the Town Hall.  Everyday before work, I have to first stop at this building and use a punch card to record my workday start-time.  And everyday after school I ride my bike back to the office and punch out.  I’m glad the school board is close to my house (five minute walk) or this would be a nuisance. 

I wonder if these are Tarui’s (or Gifu’s) official flowers.  I see them everywhere: In front of the Town Office, outside of schools, in the entrance-way to the School Board, bordering Tarui’s Culture Center.  I have a strong feeling that these flowers are important, but I will have to ask someone and find out for sure.

Speaking of flowers, fun fact – I went biking by a garden center yesterday and it was still open.  Yup.  The OUTDOOR garden flowers at the garden center are still for sale in late November.  Must be nice!  In fact, I have a potted plant outside my house that I thought wasn’t supposed to have flowers.  However, it now has tiny, white flowers that have just started blooming within the last past couple of weeks.  It almost looks like a Christmas plant, like Mistletoe or Holly. 

I guess Christmas is around the corner, which means I will be coming back home in a month.  I look forward to visiting my friends and family back in Canada soon.  But for now, I plan to hopefully visit Nara and Kyoto in the upcoming week.  I will try to keep up with my postings on my blog or I will end up with a blog day like today where I end up posting three or four blogs at once!

So until next time…