Nagoya

It's Saturday, a day off of classes, so I went to Nagoya for the day with one of my classmates, which took about 1/2 an hour by train. The city was heavily bombed during WWII, so it is very modern, and set up on a grid with pleasant, wide boulevards, and a good amount of park space. We passed an area in the park that had casts of some of the 'stars' from the Hollywood walk, as Nagoya and L.A. are sister cities, kinda funny to see these all the way across the Pacific.





















The Nagoya castle was the highlight of the day, built originally in 1612 by Ieyasu Tokugawa, the current structure dates from 1959, and is a restoration done after the War. The castle is famous for the golden dolphins (kinshachi) that sit atop the roof- and a replica of which I sat! The dolphins also appeared on ads and the subway in the form of the 'dolphin-head man' which I loved. The interior of the castle had a nice museum, which had a good deal of English labels, and a neat section that interpreted daily life during the castle's peak.



















We also went to the Osu Kannon Temple, which while small, was nice to see.











For dinner we were drawn into a cheap, quick restaurant that had a plastic coated picture menu in the window. Here, Laura puts her cash into the machine, pushes the button for the # entree she wants, and gets change and a ticket. We sat down and our food was brought out, with complementary iced tea. Fun, easy, cheap and tasty!



We finished off the day at a large bookstore with a foreign language selection, where I picked up some postcards and books (in Engish!). :)