Cormorant Fishing and more in Gifu, Japan

We decided to go to Gifu as it was the most famous place in Japan where the tradition of fishing using cormorants was still alive.

Gifu is a valley and known to be one of the hottest places in all of Japan. It certainly was. Our first stop was to Shoho-ji, a temple that housed a Great Buddha.

We then walked to the park and took the cable car up to the Gifu castle. We had fantastic views of the countryside.

Next stop was the Nagara river where we had the briefing of the cormorant fishing that we would watch that night. I later found out how lucky we were as apparently no boats went out the night before as the river’s water level was too high.

To kill time we went to a cafe which was housed in one of the famous traditional buildings Gifu is famous for. The interior blew me away.

It was finally time to board the boat and head out to see the cormorants fish.

I had a particularly great time volunteering as translator. The boatman had the thickest Japanese accent and I could hardly understand him but two women from Osaka would translate what he said to normal Japanese which I understood and I then translated that into English to the rest of the tourists.

The boats with the fishermen and the cormorants sailed down the river passing the boats filled with tourists that furiously clicked their cameras to take as many pictures as possible. Unfortunately as water levels were high, the boats flowed down the river faster than usual.

Dinner was a prawn burger (Ebi-filet) from McDonald’s.