Day 1: December 27
Today I woke up in Japan feeling a little tired, but not too jetlagged from the flight the night before. After a nutritious breakfast of milk and onigiri, courtesy of 7-11, it was time to go exploring! (Those onigiri rice balls are a tricky things to unwrap -similar to origami)
Our apartment was a tiny but clean residential unit near the main subway station in Nagoya. Although it was lightly raining, we decided to take a subway ride to visit Nagoya Castle.
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| rainy days |
The castle had been built by Tokugawa Ieyasu, a samurai lord, in 1610. Although it was destroyed by bombs during WWII, it was rebuilt to house historical exhibits on each of the floors. On top of the roof of the castle reside two shachi statues, or "golden dolphins", which are believed by the Japanese to prevent fires. However, the gold scales on the statues had been subjected to robbery multiple times.
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| Nagoya Castle (the two yellow things on top are the shachi) |
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| Views of modernity from an old castle roof. |
In the same vicinity stood Honmaru Palace, which boasted beautiful screen paintings of tigers and nature, aesthetic floors, and clean wooden lines. A restoration project was in progress as visitors toured the palace in what felt like an extravagant open house session.
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| Silk Paintings |
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| Nice House. |
After, we headed to Osu Kannon Shopping District, which was an open air market/mall similar to those in Hong Kong. It was a strange feeling eating a Hawaiian burger in a Japanese market while listening to Korean pop music (BTS -fireee), but I guess the country was embracing globalism. The majority of shops were for clothing and shoes, but a few places catered toward the stereotypical "weeaboo", such as card trading stores and cosplay vendors complete with maid costumes. However, the best store of all was the 100 yen store, which stocked everythings from kawaii notebooks and washi tape to wooden spoons!
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| Got any trap cards? |
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| My dad: "Can I fit anything?" |
Wandering around led us to a Taiyaki shop, where we bought fish-shaped pancakes stuffed with purple yam. And of course, to remain educational, we stopped by another temple.
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| YUM |
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| Fancy temple |
After some more tunneling around underground, with all people (Japanese and non-Japanese) speaking to me in Japanese for some reason, dinner was captured. As in, we sat down in a Yakiniku restaurant and grilled some Japanese BBQ. The charcoal fires made the atmosphere hazy, but the food was plentiful and tasty. Clearly, from the loud cheers and drinking by the other patrons, the restaurant was a place for locals to relax after work and have fun with friends.
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| The lettuce leaf was my "vegetable" |
After dinner and hair full of smoke, it was time to subway back to the apartment. Day One complete :)
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