Sakae and Nagoya Castle

Nagoya Castle.

Big day yesterday. What was supposed to be a trip to the city hall turned into our first time doing a touristy type thing. We managed to figure out the metro system surprisingly easily. It's nicely designed, with two lines running parallel and another which runs in a wide continuous loop, cutting through both lines.  It maximizes space covered and end up a cinch to figure out.

Turtle shell gunpowder case.

Just in front of City Hall, the remains of the massive ancient complex of Nagoya Castle sit, now fully restored and with the old grounds grown over with a few original trees. The castle was build by Oda Nobunaga, first Shogun to centralize Japan in the early 1600's. The complex had mostly survived nearly 400 years when it was firebombed three months before the end of the war, destroying much of it. I was glad to see the exhibitions inside focus the its early-modern history instead of it's recent fate. Old tapestries, katana, emblems, etc were on display. My favorite pieces were a fragment of an incendiary bomb from WWII, a gunpowder case made from a turtle shell, and a collection of beautiful medieval guns, one of them absolutely massive.

Afterward, we headed to Oasis21, a bus terminus in Sakae, aka downtown Nagoya. Bright and bustling, with nerdy pleasures like the NHK/Studio Ghibli shop, Shonen Jump shop and Pokemon Centre, packed with folks of all ages.

Sakae at night.

Sakae itself is a many-levelled neon cluster#$@* of a downtown core. Our destination was Daiso, a massive 100yen-store, whose wares you could furnish your house, and fridge, and yard, with. And while Montreal boasts a massive connected "underground city"(to which I always roll my eyes), Sakae's labarynthian underground is but one level of this multi-tiered shopping hell, that extends into nearly every high-rise in the area. Vanessa and I spent hours meandering the streets, half-looking for the Daiso, half taking it all in. By the afternoon, night was falling and the landscape was changing quickly and dramatically. We upped our determination to find the Daiso but only got more disoriented. Suddenly, a miracle. Mariko, the lady that runs the offices at Freebell - who rescued us not two days earlier when cab drivers refused us service out of the airport - shows up like our own personal Virgil to guide us through this impenetrable mess. "Mm", I hear from beside and below (which she always begins or ends her sentences with, with a nod like she just made up her mind about something)."Excuse me", she says. "Mariko."--

We headed home with our hands full of 100yen stuff. Put it down and left again right away for the restaurant right next door. It was our first time there and the owner was an eager-to-please colourful talkative guy who took our coats, brought us beer and english menus (which had a bikini-clad babe cut from a magazine and a handcut speech-bubble glued to her head saying "welcome to Japan": "It's joke, it's joke, you like?", he asked). He left us alone while we ate to a trip-hop soundtrack but when he saw we were done asked us plenty of questions about Japanese food, and the girls, in Canada (He loves tall blonde girls). He made us promise we would come back and gave us his business card, which says "Thank You" and came with a small bath soap which he promised us would provide a relaxing Japanese-style bath.