Being a Tourist in Nagoya

Now that training is over, and I don't move into my new apartment until Friday, I've decided to spend this week being a tourist. I have been to Nagoya before, but I was just visiting a good friend and we didn't actually see any of the famous spots.

On Saturday I went to Tsuruma Park, where lots of people were enjoying the cherry blossoms and getting drunk in the sun.

I also went to Loft in Sakae, and discovered that they are doing an Adventure Time Promotion! It seemed like most people didn't know what it was, I kept hearing people saying things like 'wow what's this? It looks kind of fun'.

On Sunday I decided to be a bit more cultural and headed over to Atsuta Shrine in the morning. It was raining pretty heavily but I still got to see a few traditional wedding processions. It's a really beautiful shrine, and apparently the legendary sword Kusanagi is kept there but only the emperor gets to see that.

It's not just this big shrine, there are lots of smaller ones around, so after I explored a bit and wrote on a wooden Ema that I hope to be a good ALT, I jumped back on the subway and went to Osu Kannon, a temple dedicated to Kannon who is a Boddhisatva of compassion.

People say there isn't much to do in Nagoya but despite the fact I have visited a lot of shrines and temples, I really liked these ones. The atmosphere was pretty amazing, even compared to shrines and temples in Kyoto.

Osu Kannon is surrounded by a shopping area. I didn't buy anything but I met a cute dog, and discovered another temple right in the middle of one of the main shopping streets which was a bit of a surprise.




















Today was Monday and I went to Nagoya Castle with one of my new colleagues. It's not the original castle, because that was destroyed during the war but it's still a cool place to visit. We wandered through Meijo Park to get there- a bit of a walk but it was nice day.

The inside of the main castle is a museum showing items that survived the war. If you go to the very top there are some cool views of Nagoya:

They are still working on renovating the castle and its grounds- it won't be finished until 2018- but it was a nice way to spend a sunny day.

I'm planning on going to Inuyama this week which apparently has the oldest castle in Japan. I was thinking of going to the Totoro House tomorrow which has an exact replica of the house in the movie, but it requires buying a ticket from Lawson and it's kind of far away so I might do something else in the city instead. After this week I won't be far away from Nagoya anyway so it's no big deal.

Nagoya isn't so bad!