BBQ Party in Inuyama

Me and Bradley Rowlinson.

Bradley's an Ozzie mate from the Gold Coast that came to Japan to work for CBS as a translator during the '98 Nagano Winter Olympics. He often tells an entertaining story about being selected to drive a Martha Stewart around Nagano for a night. Being an Australian, he had no idea who she was, so he just started chatting to her about life in general. That's Bradley in a nutshell.

Saturday late afternoon Bradley, a Hawaiian friend named Jorma, and I had a BBQ in a luscious green park by the Kiso River in Gifu Prefecture near Inuyama Castle. Jorma is our self proclaimed BBQ King because he knows where all the discount meat shops are and to be quite honest the guy can cook and eat more than anyone I've ever seen.


Jorma and his wife Yuko

We sat around drinking beer with music pumping out of the back of Jorma's nearby parked hatchback eating steak, sausages, and cow tongue (a Japanese delicacy) until well into the night. Jorma manned the grill so there was a constant flow of food for at least four hours with occasional short breaks to admire lightning bugs or go throw a flimsy glow in the dark frisbee.

The weather cooperated by slowly clearing up as the day went on, and finally we were graced with a beautiful multicolored sunset through the mountains. It was a pretty nice and very filling day.


Sunset in Inuyama