Day 1 - Friendship Force Gifu-Sacramento, WTRD 32 of 49, October 5,,2017

Chubu Univesity Tea House

Having walked to the Meitetsu station the night before and booking our ticket to Kanayama,

we were relaxed and ready to board the train to meet up with our homestay Friendship Force Host, Hiro.  We were wearing our blue Friendship Force shirts, 

so Hiro immediately stepped up to greet us as we exited the train. Suzanne was met by her host.  Andy was met by our host who would take him to meet his hosts at the Kachigawa station.

After introductions, our hosts presented us with  transportation passes to use while staying with them.  We all left the Meitetsu station, entered a JR station, and boarded a train for Kachigawa station which is closer to our hosts's homes. Suzanne and her host stayed on the train for another couple of stops while we got off the train and were met by Hiro's wife, Kiyoko and Andy's hosts the Sakatas.

After a brief stop at Hiro's home to drop off our bags we drove to Chubu University.   Hiro had arranged a tour of this large private university through a friend of his.  We were greeted by Professor Seiko from the International Relations Department and and Mori and Chihoko both students in the Active Again College for  returning retirees.  The university has seven colleges such as Engineering, Bioscience and Humanities.

 We began with a lunch hosted by Professor Seiko in the main student cafeteria.  A lively discussion ensued and Russ even had a brief introduction to written Japenese from Chihoko.  There are 100 phonetic characters (Hiraganga and Katakana) and over 4000 characters dervived from Chinese (Kanji) to learn! 

After lunch the first stop was the campus tea house and garden "Kuho-an". This structure was first built in the early 1500's and was reassemble on the campus.  It provides a place to enjoy nature and clear your mind in the midst of this busy campus.

Then it was back to the reality of campus life visiting many areas such as the library, study halls and the International Relations Department.

The Ethnology Museum was very interesting.

On the way home Hiro took us to his family shrine.  It was interesting to see a Japanese cemetery and and learn about family culture.

 We even stopped to hit a few balls before going home!

 Kiyoko was busy in the kitchen preparing a wonderful dinner for us when we returned.

Then it was to bed before our golf game tomorrow.