A Day Trip to Nagoya

Last weekend, I went on a very short trip to Nagoya. I was my first time to ever go there. I had only ever seen it from the shinkansen and car window. The reason for going was to see a musical, also a first for me. Akira and co. knew a girl who was starring in the musical. She is actually a Nagoya JET. So on Sunday morning, we (Akira, Yuki, and I) met at Tsuruhashi station and took the Kintesu line to Nagoya. We all are hard for cash right now, so that’s why we didn’t drive or take the shinkansen (Let me just take this moment to point out how ridiculously expensive it is to drive on highways in Japan!! If you use a highway to travel to a different prefecture, we are talking like a 5000 yen toll each way or more...plus gas and parking!). Usually it would only take around an hour or an hour and a half to get there, but by regular trains, it took almost four hour each way. However, it was only around 2,000 yen each way! Nice!

Yuki and Akira stayed out all night the previous night, and I had taken the last train home. I was pretty tired, but Yuki and Akira (especially Akira) were exhausted! Akira slept most of the train ride. Yuki and I just talked. Yuki kept saying he had 変なテンション (“Hen na tenshon” = like when you get all weird and hyper from lack of sleep) on the way there, so that’s why he was so awake and talkative.

Akira is dead.

When we arrived at Nagoya station, we met up with our friend Umito who is living in Nagoya. He was the one who invited us. We headed to the musical. The musical was called “Dream Catcher.” It was a Native American tale. It was in English, but all the actors were from different backgrounds. Some were Japanese and others were American, British, Australian, etc. It was entertaining and gave me an overall good impression of live musicals. Here's a link to the webpage: http://kpbtheatre.com/en/shows/dreamcatcher/info

Afterwards, we headed to Sakae station (near Nagoya station) to get dinner. We went to this cool izakaya that had an old pub feel to it. The night before, my friend had told me about famous local dishes in Nagoya, so I decided to try one. I love eel, so I got something called hitsumabushi. It’s eel on top of rice that you eat in stages. First, you eat it as is. Then you eat it with some wasabi, onions, and Japanese pickles mixed in (I like this way the best). Lastly, you pour this tea broth stuff on it and eat it kind of like porridge. My friends told me to try it a fourth way to be funny by mixing in the wasabi, onions, pickles, AND the broth. We called it Osaka style haha! It was good! However, when they brought it out at first, there was no eel in it. We were so confused because it was too expensive to not have eel. We were trying to taste the rice to see if there was like ground up eel in it, but we didn’t think so. So we asked, and it turned out that they forgot to put the eel on it! The most important part! Haha! They fixed it for me, thankfully. 

Before the eel...wtf?

After the eel...that's more like it!

After dinner, we said our goodbyes to Umito and began the long journey home. We talked and slept on the way back. I think I got home around 10:30. I didn’t get to see that much of Nagoya, but from what I did see, it had a very open feel to it. The buildings were shorter that Osaka’s. The sky felt wider. The streets were wide, and the buildings were nicely lined up in a row. I guess overall, it’s just a pretty ordinary city with nothing too special about it. I should probably go back again sometime and explore more. I love my Osaka with its craziness, rough-friendly-interesting people, famous landmarks, and obsession with food. It’s nice to check out other places though. Stay tuned...next place on my list of places in visit in Japan is Hokkaido! Should be going next month. ;D

It's Nagoya!

Downtown.

Yuki sleeping standing up on the way home.
He said he was pretending, but I don't think so.