Nagoya and Friends

So this weekend was my “spring break” from TUJ, which was more or less just a four-day weekend that they called spring break to make everyone (sort of) happy. As I mentioned before, I planned a trip to Nagoya, originally by myself (because everyone was going to Kyoto but I’m going in a month with my dad), but ended up being accompanied by my good friend Bernadette. All in all, I’m definitely glad that I didn’t go alone.

The first, and one of the most exciting parts, of the trip was the Shinkansen ride to and from Nagoya. The Shinkansen literally translates to “new trunk line” in English but I translate it as “Wow that’s a fast train, why can’t America have this sort of thing??” The train tops out at nearly 200 mph, so fast that you can really barely see anything that’s going on outside the window. To top it all off, it’s a super smooth ride too. So smooth that during the first few years of its existence, people were getting motion sickness because it was such a clean ride. To combat this, Japan Railways actually installed bumps on the tracks to make it seem more “rickety”. It’s really quite a fun ride, especially in the daytime when you can look at the window. On the way home, we had a great view on Mt. Fuji to the left of the train, which is still breathtaking at 200 mph.

Nagoya is not often cited as the “place to be” as far as cities in Japan go, probably because it is a lot like Tokyo. However, there were some really neat parts in the city itself that we got to see, though I’m glad we only had one day in the city proper. The night we got there we checked into our hotel, which happened to be extremely extremely nice with these fabulous beds that were so comfortable we wanted to steal them, and decided to go to the top of the Marriott Hotel which was about 52 stories high. We got to the top and ended up going to the bar/club up there and got a really nice seat by the window with a great view of the city. Though the singer in the bar was pretty terrible (and sounded oddly like a man) we had delicious wine and got to taste the “high life” (i.e. we were the only ones in jeans, under 40, etc.).

The first day we decided to head over to Inuyama, which was about a 30 minute train ride away. The city itself was not too exciting, but had a really amazing castle that was still pretty well preserved (and totally NOT touristy like Nagoya Castle), with these extremely steep ladders you could climb to get to the roof. Along the way I befriended this two really nice Japan obaasan (grandmothers) who were visiting the castle as well. In fact, I met a lot of obaasan all around and it became sort of a running theme throughout the weekend. The castle also had a shrine nearby completely dedicated to dogs, since Inuyama translates to “dog mountain” in English.

After the castle and shrine, we hopped on a bus to the main attraction of the day, Meiji Mura. This place had been recommended to us by our Japanese culture teacher, and for extremely good reason. The best way to describe is as a giant (and I mean like 50 acres giant) historical theme park that had hundreds and hundreds of perfectly preserved Meiji and Edo period buildings all around. The buildings were literally brought in by train from all around Japan and looked pretty spectacular considering how old they were. There were post offices, banks, hotels, apartments, famous people’s homes, churches; pretty much every type of building. There was even a Noh theater, which we got a private tour of (in sort of a hybrid of Japanese and English) by one of the guides. A highlight of the tour is when we went into the basement where the workers slaved away in suppressive heat turning the giant rotating wheel that made up part of the stage. The guide described the place as “Naraku” which literally means “hell”. Before we headed to “Naraku”, the guide, in her most cheerful voice, announced to us, in English, “Let’s go to hell!” And to hell we went.

Another highlight was in one of the Western churches. There was a group of Japanese girls that were taking pictures and one of them was crouching in front of the altar, pretending to pray while her friend took a picture. So, of course, I ran over and kneeled down beside her and started to “pray” as well, much to the amusement of everyone around us. If anything, besides the spirituality (ha!) of the whole experience, Bernie took a priceless picture and me with the girl next to me. There was also a really neat hotel whose lobby was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. Meiji Mura was a really awesome, totally unique place and it was certainly worth the trip out there. I would probably say it was my favorite part of the trip.

The next day we decided to just stay in Nagoya and see the sights within the city. In the morning we went to the Tokugawa Museum, a giant building that had tons and tons of stuff from Japanese history: a monumental collection of old porcelain dolls, 400 year old waka poetry, kimonos, samurai helmets, swords, beautiful painted screen doors – it had everything, and all of it was truly fascinating to look at (which is certainly what everyone else had in mind since it was absolutely packed). Near the museum there was an enormous garden as well, which we toured for a bit after the museum.

After lunch we went to Nagoya Castle. We were expecting touristy, but this was a bit much. The castle itself is gorgeous, towering above the castle walls with 7 floors that are segmented on top of one another. Though the outside was awesome, the inside was pretty much a tourist trap and a half. We made the most of it. Nagoya Castle is super famous for these two golden dolphins on the roof. So, of course, there was a huge plastic dolphin inside the castle that you could pose with. And oh, did we pose. One of the better shots was of me “modeling” on the dolphin, sprawled out on my side with my head resting on my hand. Isn’t defiling historical artifacts fun?!

At night we met our friend Kyle from TUJ, who was visiting his girlfriend, for dinner and went to an izakaya (Japanese bar) afterwards where his girlfriend was working. After that it was time to go home for the last night before heading home on Saturday. It was a great trip (with many, many more details and events that I purposely omitted) and of course, I took a ton of pictures which I’ve posted on Facebook.

Today I went with Bernie back to Odaiba (she had never been there) and did all the usual fun stuff there. Tomorrow its back to school for the home stretch…ack. Hard to believe how little time is left here and how much more I want to do. We’re still trying to plan a trip to Thailand (though it’s still up in the air) and will hopefully have a plan hammered out by the end of the week. If not Thailand, another option would be Guam (which is a bit closer and cheaper) but if that falls through, I’m going to probably go to Osaka on my own.

Keep in touch, ya’ll! Before you know it, I’ll be back home sharing all my crazy stories and pictures with you guys (though perhaps I stay here forever, because I’ve been thinking a lot recently about how fast its going by and how much I truly love Japan. I can’t quite put my finger on the reasons I love it so much, but there’s just something about it that makes you adore it. The TUJ program director was spot on when he said at orientation that Japan is like a bad drug habit – if you go once, you’re going to come back whether you like it or not).

Minna san, ki o tsukete ne! (Take care everyone!)

Picture Guide: #1 Bernie and Me in the Marriott Hotel in Nagoya, #2 Inuyama Castle, #3 An old post office in Meiji Mura, #4 Tokukawa Garden, #5 Nagoya Castle