Nagoya

A few weekends back, I went to Nagoya in Aichi Prefecture. We’d arrived early in the morning after getting a night bus from Tokyo. We didn’t get much sleep during our trip to Nagoya, but we did get some fantastic weather! There’s nothing special there, but the city does have a good vibe.

On Day 1, we went to Inuyama Castle, Japan’s oldest castle; Hatcho Miso Company where we had miso ice-cream; and during the evening, Oasis21, a saucer-shaped shopping centre which has a good view of Nagoya Tower and this futuristic park on the roof top with atmospheric lighting, perfectly cut lawn, and chillout music with bird-chirp sound effects playing in the background.

We had dinner at Atsuya Houraiken, a restaurant in Nagoya which serves the local speciality, hitsumabushi i.e. eel. The eel was absolutely delicious, and highly recommended. There’s three ways to eat your meal, of which they encourage you to eat it in this particular order after quartering up your eel on rice: 1) Eat the eel on rice as it is. 2) Add wasabi, scallions and seaweed. 3) Add the seasoning as in Step 2, and then pour over some vegetable broth. 4) For the last portion, you can choose to eat it anyway you like. I went for the third method ;)

During the hour long wait for a table, we got talking to this absolutely lovely Japanese girl who was waiting in front of us, and she gave us recommendations on what to see and eat in Nagoya. The funny thing was, was that after her and her friends were seated, we were seated right next to them! They, being regulars, talked us through the steps of eating hitsumabushi. And we were asked to join in and sing Happy Birthday to one of her mates, whose birthday meal they were celebrating. They are such nice people!

After dinner, we walked around town in order to aid digestion, then started looking for somewhere to sleep. There was no luck with booking accommodation ahead of time because of the lack of vacancies from visitors coming to see the Suzuka Grand Prix, so we were relying on internet cafes. The first two were full, but on our third try, just after midnight we managed to get a karaoke room which was the dingiest place that I have slept in, and I’ve stayed in my fair share of net cafes and hostels. The carpet was filthy and wet from spilt drink, and after turning the curved booths on their sides for a makeshift rocking bed, we found things that made us grimace… do not ever stay at Manboo (an internet cafe chain). But we didn’t want to resort to McDonalds, so for that night, we made do, and managed to take a shower, and get a little sleep.

The next day, we went and had a picnic breakfast on the Nagoya Castle grounds, and had a look around the castle when it opened. This was followed by a tour at the Asahi Brewery, which was really interesting. If a person were to drink a can of beer everyday, there’s enough beer in one of their brewing tanks to last them for over 3000 years! The amazing thing is, is that they have no waste products, everything is recycled for other uses. Even the tour guide’s clothes were made from recycled materials! There was all you can drink in 20 minutes after the tour too ;)

Lunch was Miso Nikomi Udon, noodles cooked in a red miso broth, another local specialty. The rest of the day was spent taking our time exploring Atsuta Temple, Osu Kannon Temple and the rest of town. Dinner was Miso Katsu, breaded pork cutlet in miso sauce. Nagoya is famous for miso ;)

Before the night ride back to Tokyo, we took a bath at Jizouyu. This old, wooden, traditional bath house with worn pre-1990s interior, and Mt. Fuji painted on the bathroom wall tiles ;)

We arrived back in Tokyo at about 5am, and from there, it was home and off to bed.