jinian | Japan trip report 24 Sep (Reply)

Up at 9am to check out of guest house. We lined up a room in Toyoko Inn near Sakae (still in Nagoya) for the next night. We were ready to leave at 10, but the breakfast room didn't open then as advertised, so we unwisely left without any. We decided the best idea was to try to leave our bags at the hotel early, so we headed for there. On the way out of Sakae Station we found a surprisingly pretty mall in a hole in the ground, with a big clear pool on stilts above it. This is Oasis 21.

Within it we found breakfast, which is good because I was seriously grouchy by then. The bakery Steiner furnished pastries, including allergy information so we found some Wim could eat, and there was a place for him to get coffee. While we ate and drank, we heard occasional drumming, so we investigated afterward and found a whole stage set up for a festival with a group of performers drumming and dancing. Really fun to watch!

And we saw an NHK (major TV station) character shop, though we didn't go in.

It says "kasagi" -- I don't know. I thought maybe it was a cute little chestnut? We were on our way up the giant ramp by this time so I didn't investigate.

Dropped luggage off at the hotel, which went fine. Some of the employees understood English better than others.

I wanted to return to Nagoya Castle and thought Wim would really like it, so we went around there all afternoon admiring the gardens and walls, peering out the overly warm observation tower, and looking through the exhibits. We walked through the Hommaru Palace renovation area and marveled at the innumerable shingles going onto the roof, each of which about a foot long for every inch that shows. I'm sure the inside is going to be amazing too. Lots of fun, and still not enough time spent there to see everything.

Look at the beautiful beam-end tiles.

Not all the moats had water in them, but this one was especially lovely. Lots of carp in the wet moats, kudzu (I think) in the dry ones.

Layers of roofs, terminal shachi.

The various stones making the castle walls were supplied by local lords, and many have visible marks showing whose contribution they were. This guy, one of the lords, would stand on the rocks to encourage the laborers to drag them into the right place, which seemed counterproductive to us.

Japanese nutmeg? tree. Very, very old. I love the supports and commemorative stela.

We tried to go to an udon place that was recommended in our guidebook, but failed to find it, probably due to writing system difficulties. We wound up at a ramen place that was pretty good but we think maybe new, since the toppings were still a bit chilly when the bowls reached us. Expert ramenistas would know to leave them in the bowl for a minute. Still, food! Yay!

The hotel was pretty comfy, basically Western-style though small and with the self-contained plastic bathroom unit I have come to expect in Japan. I got my choice of ablution things for ladies, picked the bath stuff, and found that it contained not only passionfruit bath salts but also a coenzyme Q-10 face mask (?) and hot pepper gel to put on one's flabby parts (?!?!?!). I availed myself only of the first. The others are coming home with me, so if anyone wants them...