Dumme Nordmann in Japan part III
Nagoya Castle at evening time
It has been a long time, but I'm finally continuing the report from our Japan trip we went out on in Summer 2004. After spending a week in Tokyo, we decided to head over to Nagoya and Kyoto for a week before we returned back to Tokyo again. Nagoya is in fact, the 4th largest city in Japan (2.2 million citizens), mainly famous for its car and shipping industry. My first real experience with Japan came from having lived a year in Nagoya as an exchange student. From mid 1997 to 1998, I stayed with a host family in a city called Toyota City. Yes, you're right, this is the city of the world famous car developer. Except for the Islands of Okinawa, Nagoya is also the hottest area within Japan. I have only experienced snow once or twice while in Nagoya. Compare that to Tokyo and you're in for a shock :) Anyway, as always, enjoy some pictures from our trip, below.
On the train from Nagoya station to Toyota City station. To get from Tokyo to Nagoya however, we took the Shinkansen bullet train. Even though it is sometimes cheaper to buy a flight ticket to Nagoya, you ultimately save money by riding the Shinkansen. The reason for this, is mainly due to the extra costs of travelling back and forth to the airport. From Tokyo Narita Airport to down-town Tokyo, you can expect travel-times beyond 1 1/2 hour. As stupid as it gets, I remember walking around with a suitcase that I had had since 1994! The wheels were practically damaged beyond recognition, making it the biggest project in the world when pulling it along. I even had to ask help from Morten, several times, cause the suitcase was basically too heavy to carry.
Rat eating Japanese candy. Luckily, there were few people riding the train that day, so getting on and off with all the extra luggage we had was no problem. All Japanese trains are drenched with advertisment. In Japan, you will see just as many CMs (Commercials) for videogames as you would for movies.
Due to limits of space, underground Shopping Centres can be found in all big cities of Japan. At first, I really wondered how these Malls would look like in real life, but when experiencing them, you get to realize that there are practically identical to any other Shopping Centre out there. Cool thing about these underground facilities is the size and length. One shopping centre can in some cases, be the host of two stops on the underground subway network.
Morten, totally dead from warm temperatures. This photo was taken at the home of my host parents which I stayed at many years ago. We were allowed to crash at their place for two days while we were enjoying the sights of Nagoya. Of course, at evening times, we would head down to the local arcade to check out the level of challenge at Toyota. To our amazement, the top ranked Virtua Fighter player we witnessed was in a fact a female gamer. When returning to this arcade alone a year later, I learnt that she was actually one of the arcade hall staff members. She even crushed me completely at another fighting game like Tekken, too.
On our second day, we went to Nagoya-ko (Nagoya Harbour) and visitted the Nagoya Suizokukan (Nagoya Aquarium). This was particulary exciting for the twins, Rat and Morten, since they had never been to other similar venues like Sea World, etc. The Aquarium has all kinds of fish, and even mammals like the Killer Whale (Shachi in Japanese), Dolphin (Iruka) and Beluga (White Whale). Information about all species can be enjoyed in both Japanese and English.
At the top of the aquarium. Three dolphins launching high into the air. An impressive performance. Unfortunately for Killer Whale fans such as I, Shachi had just moved in to the aquarium and wasn't ready for any stunt show this early in his training phase. Hopefully, I'm hoping to meet Shachi during my next visit to Nagoya :)
Four idiotic-looking foreigners who more than twice appeared on the main screen of the venue. Probably, they were just as fun to look at as the crazy jumping dolphins :)
Dolphins going mental in trying to focus the attention away from the foreigners.
Nagoya Port seen from the Aquarium.
Nagoya Public Aquarium Homepage:
http://www.nagoyaaqua.jp/
Later that evening, we took some time to visit Nagoya-jou (Nagoya Castle). This castle was constructed to host the Owari family branch, one of three branches within the Tokugawa family. The castle received severe damage after the World War 2 bombings, and has, therefore, been completely rebuilt. Many believe that, if it were not for the bombings, Nagoya Castle would be the most prestigious-looking castle to date, surpassing the beauty of even the Himeiji Castle. Nagoya Castle is also famous for its two golden Killer whale statues that are standing at the top of the castle roof. These mythical creatures guard the castle from evil entry, and has given the castle an alternative name - Kinshachi-jou - where "Kin" means gold and "shachi", Killer whale.
Although we just have to apologise for not having a close-up picture, the golden Killer whales can be spotted at the top of the castle.
The Onimusha warriors of the Nagoya Castle. Due to lack of money lately, I still haven't been able to buy a copy of the newest Onimusha game, Shin-Onimusha. It is said to be slightly different from the earlier episodes in the series, but as long as the game features both an excellent variety of defence and attack techniques, I'm bound to be mesmerized no matter how bad the review scores might be.
Information on Tokugawa history can be read at the following page:
http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e2128.html
Well, that was that from Nagoya. The next day we decided to take the bus to Kyoto rather than the Shinkansen. Even though the bus ride took 5 hours, it was well worth it considering we paid 2500 yen for the ticket compared to the alternative 9000 yen.
Being as lanky legged as we are, we constantly had to hit our fists to our legs making sure they wouldn't fall asleep. Good thing the bus stopped for a 15 minute break twice on the ride :)
We will have plenty of more nice looking pictures from our Kyoto trip, so please check for updates to the blog if you have some spare time.
It has been a long time, but I'm finally continuing the report from our Japan trip we went out on in Summer 2004. After spending a week in Tokyo, we decided to head over to Nagoya and Kyoto for a week before we returned back to Tokyo again. Nagoya is in fact, the 4th largest city in Japan (2.2 million citizens), mainly famous for its car and shipping industry. My first real experience with Japan came from having lived a year in Nagoya as an exchange student. From mid 1997 to 1998, I stayed with a host family in a city called Toyota City. Yes, you're right, this is the city of the world famous car developer. Except for the Islands of Okinawa, Nagoya is also the hottest area within Japan. I have only experienced snow once or twice while in Nagoya. Compare that to Tokyo and you're in for a shock :) Anyway, as always, enjoy some pictures from our trip, below.
On the train from Nagoya station to Toyota City station. To get from Tokyo to Nagoya however, we took the Shinkansen bullet train. Even though it is sometimes cheaper to buy a flight ticket to Nagoya, you ultimately save money by riding the Shinkansen. The reason for this, is mainly due to the extra costs of travelling back and forth to the airport. From Tokyo Narita Airport to down-town Tokyo, you can expect travel-times beyond 1 1/2 hour. As stupid as it gets, I remember walking around with a suitcase that I had had since 1994! The wheels were practically damaged beyond recognition, making it the biggest project in the world when pulling it along. I even had to ask help from Morten, several times, cause the suitcase was basically too heavy to carry.
Rat eating Japanese candy. Luckily, there were few people riding the train that day, so getting on and off with all the extra luggage we had was no problem. All Japanese trains are drenched with advertisment. In Japan, you will see just as many CMs (Commercials) for videogames as you would for movies.
Due to limits of space, underground Shopping Centres can be found in all big cities of Japan. At first, I really wondered how these Malls would look like in real life, but when experiencing them, you get to realize that there are practically identical to any other Shopping Centre out there. Cool thing about these underground facilities is the size and length. One shopping centre can in some cases, be the host of two stops on the underground subway network.
Morten, totally dead from warm temperatures. This photo was taken at the home of my host parents which I stayed at many years ago. We were allowed to crash at their place for two days while we were enjoying the sights of Nagoya. Of course, at evening times, we would head down to the local arcade to check out the level of challenge at Toyota. To our amazement, the top ranked Virtua Fighter player we witnessed was in a fact a female gamer. When returning to this arcade alone a year later, I learnt that she was actually one of the arcade hall staff members. She even crushed me completely at another fighting game like Tekken, too.
On our second day, we went to Nagoya-ko (Nagoya Harbour) and visitted the Nagoya Suizokukan (Nagoya Aquarium). This was particulary exciting for the twins, Rat and Morten, since they had never been to other similar venues like Sea World, etc. The Aquarium has all kinds of fish, and even mammals like the Killer Whale (Shachi in Japanese), Dolphin (Iruka) and Beluga (White Whale). Information about all species can be enjoyed in both Japanese and English.
At the top of the aquarium. Three dolphins launching high into the air. An impressive performance. Unfortunately for Killer Whale fans such as I, Shachi had just moved in to the aquarium and wasn't ready for any stunt show this early in his training phase. Hopefully, I'm hoping to meet Shachi during my next visit to Nagoya :)
Four idiotic-looking foreigners who more than twice appeared on the main screen of the venue. Probably, they were just as fun to look at as the crazy jumping dolphins :)
Dolphins going mental in trying to focus the attention away from the foreigners.
Nagoya Port seen from the Aquarium.
Nagoya Public Aquarium Homepage:
http://www.nagoyaaqua.jp/
Later that evening, we took some time to visit Nagoya-jou (Nagoya Castle). This castle was constructed to host the Owari family branch, one of three branches within the Tokugawa family. The castle received severe damage after the World War 2 bombings, and has, therefore, been completely rebuilt. Many believe that, if it were not for the bombings, Nagoya Castle would be the most prestigious-looking castle to date, surpassing the beauty of even the Himeiji Castle. Nagoya Castle is also famous for its two golden Killer whale statues that are standing at the top of the castle roof. These mythical creatures guard the castle from evil entry, and has given the castle an alternative name - Kinshachi-jou - where "Kin" means gold and "shachi", Killer whale.
Although we just have to apologise for not having a close-up picture, the golden Killer whales can be spotted at the top of the castle.
The Onimusha warriors of the Nagoya Castle. Due to lack of money lately, I still haven't been able to buy a copy of the newest Onimusha game, Shin-Onimusha. It is said to be slightly different from the earlier episodes in the series, but as long as the game features both an excellent variety of defence and attack techniques, I'm bound to be mesmerized no matter how bad the review scores might be.
Information on Tokugawa history can be read at the following page:
http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e2128.html
Well, that was that from Nagoya. The next day we decided to take the bus to Kyoto rather than the Shinkansen. Even though the bus ride took 5 hours, it was well worth it considering we paid 2500 yen for the ticket compared to the alternative 9000 yen.
Being as lanky legged as we are, we constantly had to hit our fists to our legs making sure they wouldn't fall asleep. Good thing the bus stopped for a 15 minute break twice on the ride :)
We will have plenty of more nice looking pictures from our Kyoto trip, so please check for updates to the blog if you have some spare time.
posted by Chief Gutti @ 12:49 AM
1 Comments:
At 6:04 PM,
Nobu said…
Nice to see some updates here. Cool pictures. I could virtually see before me the part about you lot on the big screen at that Marine Park, hehe.
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