久しぶり、皆さん！ In other words, long time no see! There is less spare time in Japan than I thought I'd have so this report comes a bit late... The main problem though is that I don’t have an access to the Internet now… So posting something really takes some time. It should be faster in a few weeks. ^^ Maybe.
Anyway, today’s sightseeing program is:
Nagoya!
A (very) brief introduction to Nagoya: Nagoya is the 4th largest city in Japan with a population of about 2,236,000 people. Larger ones are only Tōkyō, Yokohama (which is almost…well…a part of Tōkyō. It’s like an enormously giant mega-city called Greater Tokyo Area with a population exceeding 35 million people!) and the 3rd one - Ōsaka. There is an access to sea, so it has its own port called Nagoya-kō and, as is quite normal in Japan, it has a new airport on artificial island – Centrair. 4th largest city might seem like a small village (as it would almost be in Czech), but it’s really a huge city with numerous skyscrapers, districts, giant shopping malls and just whatever you want there to be.
Nagoya Eki (Nagoya Station) is located 30 minutes by normal train from Okazaki…or 5 minutes by Shinkansen from even farther city. I went to explore some of the famous sights, shrines and temples, electronic district, a few popular shopping malls etc; with my friend on Saturday and alone on Sunday.
Saturday (Part 1/2)
We took a most normal of normal trains, which are by the way fully air conditioned, quiet and clean, from Okazaki and arrived to Nagoya Eki at about 10 AM. Nagoya Eki should be the largest railway station in the world. I’m not sure if the word “largest” covers only the train station itself or the whole train station complex, but if it’s the second, there’s indeed no wonder to it. It looks like…:
1) Imagine a train station
2) Now, make it at least 50 times bigger
3) Add 3 floors below the ground
4) Add 2 skyscrapers above the ground, with 51 floors in the larger one
5) Compare with your local train station
As strange as it may seem, all of this is a part of Nagoya Eki, including the skyscrapers – JR Towers (JR stands for “Japan Railways” – domestic railway company). As soon as we found an elevator, we went to 13th floor and then straight to 51st. The 51st floor has a café, where we drank our (reasonably 51st floor-priced) morning coffees while observing a quarter of Nagoya below us… It was quite a shock to arrive from a half-literally medieval Prague, where such things are not possible even in dreams, and then to suddenly drink a coffee on the top of the tallest building I’ve ever seen so far.
Among the other surprises were damn fast elevators. I made sure to make a video, so you can see for yourselves… It was more than 1.2 floors per second! And there are even faster ones in other places. You could fly to the moon with this if there was no rooftop. Or at least to a nearby heliport.
We got off on 13th (or 14th? Who really cares?) floor which is a part of monstrous, about 16-floor, shopping centre. Note that all of this is still a part of the train station… But since it was basically really just a shopping centre, we were soon (1 hour? ^^ ) on the ground floor again.
Our next destination was Higashi Betsuin. It’s a temple located…surprisingly somewhere not far from Higashi Betsuin station. Nagoya is just too big, so I’ve not even the slightest idea where this is and I’m too lazy to open a map now.
For me, it was the first time to see this kind of architecture (see photos below) with my own eyes (since this was the first trip since my arrival to Japan) so even though it isn’t so impressive overall, I liked it very much. There was supposed to be a small flea market, but either we arrived somewhat late, or it was literally a FLEA market. One way or another, this was a great introduction to the traditional architecture before our next stop – the very famous Atsuta Jingū (Atsuta Shrine).
Atsuta Jingū is well-known all over Japan as one of the most sacred shintō shrines. During Ōmisoka (New Year’s Eve), half of Nagoya gathers here… I can’t imagine how this place must be (over)crowded during that time. The shrine itself, indeed, was impressive, with a nice nature nearby and really sacred feel to it. What had really made a common “What the…?” look on my face before we settled for our lunch hadn’t been the shrine itself though… It was a group of one priest and two shrine maidens (not sure about it, I judge so by their outfit) making a ceremony for safe ride or whatever for each car on a parking lot. It sounds insane, but see the photos and video below and you’ll surely understand why have I been so stunned. Japanese culture is really very strange for me sometimes. But as long as it’s funny, why not…? ^^
After a lunch break accompanied by tons of crows all around the place, we went just 10 meters away from the restaurant and the scene miraculously transformed into a beautiful pond and a bench with a roof completely covered in greenery and with some animals nearby. Namely a few pigeons, large tortoises and colored decorative carps in the pond and a white cock proudly walking nearby. I’m not sure why, but I just loved this small place.
Hour hands on our (digital) clocks were moving really fast and we decided to go to Sakae. Sakae should be somewhere in the centre of Nagoya. It’s a shopping district with many modern buildings, futuristic architecture and as I could confirm later, a gathering place for young couples in the night. The oval-shaped strange looking piece of metal (photos and video again) has no useful usage at all, but it looks great and really nicely fits into that place. On the top of this “egg” called Oasis 21, there is a pool of water on transparent glass, so you can see what’s going on below. When we got there, a kind of small scale concert had been held on the bottom (above the ground level… There is more “up & down” than “left & right” in Japan). I’ve no idea what it really was, but it was funny to observe Japanese during such an event. And the mascots there were just too cute… But, I guess since it was about 35°C and twice this temperature inside the costumes, the performers themselves hadn’t looked so cute at all…
After Oasis 21, we moved through an underground shopping mall to the Nagoya TV Tower. It’s the somewhat small Eiffel Tower-like tower behind the Oasis 21 “egg” on the photos. The admission fee was according to standard (read insane) Japanese prices but we could rise to about ¾ of its height, so the view was worth it. I think photos speak for themselves, so no comments and just look on them – Nagoya. ^^ You can see Oasis 21, JR Towers and Nagoya-jyō (Nagoya Castle)…
It was not long before sunset when we left Sakae and headed towards unknown places. Our destination should had been Maruzen – a large bookstore with English books on sale where my friend wanted to go – but as you can imagine, walking without knowing where exactly to go in such a large city is a bit complicated… At least if you know no Japanese, which fortunately isn’t our case, so we were OK.
On our quite a long way in search for cheap English books which weren’t so cheap at all, we made a brief stop at pachinko parlor. Pachinko is a kind of hazard gaming device… Looks like a mix of a video slot machine and something like pinball. Just look here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pachinko
It’s incredibly popular. I don’t get why the hell is it so popular but just see the amount of metal balls in their baskets… The most amazing thing was a noise though. I bet if you measured noise level on an airport runway and compared it with pachinko centre, this hellacious hole with pachinko all over the place would be noisier by all means. I was sure I’d become deaf before I could leave it.
It’s pitch dark at about after 7:30 PM in this part of Japan, so by the time we left Maruzen (which we had entered still boiling under the sunlight…), neon signs and brightly colored lights of nearby shops, restaurants, pubs etc. dominated the view. I was planning to buy a few things in Ōsu – the electronics, fashion and what not district of Nagoya located just nearby the well-known Ōsu Kannon temple. Since we hadn’t quite make it in time and it was already a closing time for most shops by the time we managed to find it, I couldn’t buy anything at all, but it still was enjoyable just to walk in the place. I especially liked the Akamon Dōri (Akamon Street) with many boutiques with untraditional young fashion and just very youthful feel to the place.
In fact, we were quite lost there, so we just headed straight ahead until we reached a highway built above the ground level. The ground level itself, however, was amazing mixture of “roofed” meeting spots, playgrounds and simply looked like a downtown inside a downtown leading a long way under a highway. Not that there were any buildings or famous things or anything – there was just a skate park with DJ playing some music, a newly looking court for basketball with a match in progress, groups of people practicing some dances… And all of this was very lively already almost at night and strangely covered under a highway above. Unfortunately, I couldn’t make any pictures of it for it really was very dark…
In the end we somehow ended up in Sakae again. As soon as we exited (again) underground passage, there was a direct view on the Nagoya TV Tower right above the Central Park shopping centre. It looked even more impressive with multi-colored Oasis 21, but unfortunately again: we couldn't make it to the top of Oasis, since it already was past the closing time... We already were pretty tired and for it was 10 PM, Sakae - Night Version served as our last stop before the Nagoya Eki on our way home.
Amazing occurrence № zillion: the station seemed livelier after 10 PM than at 10 AM! If I hadn’t known that it’s already almost night, I’d swear it’s not pitch dark outside. I mean pitch dark + neon signs serving as good as small suns. The last photo was shot at about 22:13 and as you can see, the area in the behind was even more overcrowded than the place near the entrance where I stood. I guess I don’t even want to know how many people there are during the rush hour…
It was a rush hour for us, however, because our train was leaving soon and Japanese trains are almost never late. I got used to late departures in Prague so much that I’ve already missed at least 2 trains because of it. They are just strictly on time here in Japan. We managed to get home at about 23:30, but the plan for the next day was Nagoya again.
See you later!
PS: I hope not too late this time, but I can't promise anything at the moment...
Photos:
The entrance to the Nagoya Eki (Nagoya Station)
A “Floor Guide” in JR Tower 1… B2F to 13F are the floors which you can normally access using a private elevator, but if I remember correctly, there were more shops above. And others in the second JR Tower…
Nagoya Eki again… Seems like a famous meeting spot.
13th floor
Another floor guide
View from the 51st floor of JR Tower. The white building on the right is the second Tower.
Heliports are just everywhere…
…Really
This building has visible elevators from the outside which are lit in the night
Morning coffee ^^
Cakes on sale in the café… Couldn’t really afford it for that price though.
These are PLASTIC models from menu in a restaurant on around 13th floor
Decorative envelopes for money… A popular gift.
This Czech rat…err, mole is popular even in Japan…
This thing stands just in front of the entrance to Nagoya Eki.
It looks like this almost everywhere you go. And they often write a distance to the wanted place.
This is a ticket machine. You insert money (coins or banknotes) in there, push a button with a ticket price which you can verify on the subway plan above, and insert the ticket into…
…this thing. You can’t pass without your ticket and it won’t let you go through if the price on your ticket doesn’t match with the distance traveled when you leave the station. You can pay the rest in a similar ticket machine (there are many types, since Japanese trains are owned by numerous companies) or to the railways employee nearby.
Since complains on some geezers touching women in trains had been registered, women-only cars have been established for use during the rush hours.
It WASN’T crowded
Other ticket machines
Nagoya’s subway network
Schoolgirls...
...schoolboys...
...and schoolgirls again.
Entrance to Higashi Betsuin
And Higashi Betsuin Temple itself
Sewers lid
Taxi
Railway stretching above
Onigoroshi sake – “Devil Killer” in English ^^ But I’d rather name it only an Insect Killer since it wasn’t that strong at all
Entrance to Atsuta Jingū with torii gate
Well, there were MANY torii in there…
You write your wish on one, hang it there and pray for the success
A leaf floating in the air on a single spider thread
Wash your both hands and mouth ritually and you are ready to enter the shrine area
Big barrels of sake – mostly sponsors’ gifts
A shrine maiden?
Atsuta Jingū
Offerings
A priest and shrine maidens doing a short ritual for a safe ride
These are something like fortune telling paper slips
The scenery isn't always perfect ^^
Lantern
This piece of a kitchenware looks rather like from some videogame… It was actually used by horsemen… Don’t ask me how the hell they were able to carry and then even use this monster.
Lunchtime. Nagoya’s speciality – kishimen (flat udon noodles)
Crows were really everywhere around this place
Small pond with some animals and very nice atmosphere
“Carp food is in purificatory tea house. Please, don’t feed them.”… Or something like this, I don’t really get this one. o_O
I think they went there purely for shooting photos
Already on our way back to the subway
He stands there praying for traffic safety
Using umbrellas or parasols while riding a bike is forbidden since June (or about that time)… However, it seems like nobody cares.
I haven’t seen this in Prague…
Poor little crab... ^^
Alight only?
Sakae with Oasis 21 and Nagoya TV Tower in behind
Oasis 21 is just a few degrees to the left
A small concert… Still preparations?
The top of Oasis 21 as seen from below
And the top with water on transparent glass
Going to check the place
A really different feel than to what I'm used to
He must have been boiled inside this outfit!
A souvenir vending machine… They have vending machines just for anything.
View from the Nagoya TV Tower
Note the ferris wheel between buildings… They are very popular.
Oasis 21
You can see Nagoya-jyō (Nagoya Castle)
JR Towers dominating the view
Wedding ceremony plates in the tower
This is for drying wet hands… I’ve seen 3 different types of these driers so far.
Elevator
This car is actually a small stand with crushed ice and other things on sale
Behind the VW stand
Ferris wheel (the one seen from the Nagoya TV Tower)
Pachinko! It was unbelievably noisy.
A humble pub...
And a humble car...
Entrance to Maruzen - a bookstore
A popular chain of restaurants
They were playing around just inside a store
Drink with a melon taste
Entrance gate to Akamon Dōri (Akamon Street)
Ōsu Kannon temple during the night time
White lolita...
Girls in subway
Central Park shopping mall with the Nagoya TV Tower
Oasis 21 during the night
Oasis 21 with the Nagoya TV Tower
The ferris wheel again
Back in Nagoya Eki. This is the skyscraper we had looked at from the 51st floor in the morning.
And this is that spiral thing from the morning… And me resembling a monkey posture.
JR Towers
Nagoya Eki at 22:13
Videos:
Elevator at one of JR Towers in Nagoya Eki. The speed is amazing, though there are even faster ones in Japan!
A shintō priest and two shrine maidens (at least I think so) performing a ritual ceremony for a safe ride in front of each car on a parking lot in Atsuta Jingū
A small concert taking place in Oasis 21 complex in Sakae
Elevator in Nagoya TV Tower. Visibility is quite poor, but you can see the buildings from the photos above. The big grey building next to the pink one is a bank.
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