Nagoya, more like NAG, Oh Yeah!

First real day in Nagoya is really finished! Today was rather non-eventful, but I guess I saw somethings that kept me amused. Let me relate them to you all.

Well, off to a late start due at least in part to the separate room thing, Ben and I went around and grabbed some lunch -- bento (basically lunch boxes, stores that specialize in these are common everywhere in Japan). This is important because my bento was something called "Kuma-San" which roughly translates to Mr/Mrs/Ms/Miss Bear. It came in a container shaped like a bear head, and the top had a little face. It was adorable, delicious, and a surprisingly decent amount of food. Ben and I enjoyed our meals in a park, and then basically just walked around. There was a loose goal of finding me shoes (my somewhat recently purchases laces broke this morning, which somehow made me more urgent in this...even though they still tie and can be bought separately), which was not successful, but did lead us to an area near Central Park (hahaha) with dinosaur-shaped bushes, an NHK character store, a Pokemon Store (with union room) AND a Shonen Jump Store! Pretty impressive stuff, you know. I also almost bought shoes, but chose to wait and try to find better ones later.

From here we kind of wandered out again, somewhat aimlessly. At a certain point Ben decided to go one way and me another, which was roughly we got sick of dealing with each other and neither wanted to follow the other. This happened in Hiroshima, too, with the park...but this time had a lot more lead up and was much more smooth a separation. Anyway, afterwards I kind of wandered all over the place. I went down to Nagoya Station, which has some cool buildings (especially the spiral tower!) and some malls, then wandered out to Ennoji shopping street, which had lots of slippers but no shoes I could use, and finally ended up exploring Nagoya Castle area. This is important because not only is it the 400th year anniversary of the castle, but the castle was closed when I got there and left me with a ridiculously long walk back with nothing of real interest on the way. I found a shoe shop, but they stop stocking shoes at like...2 inches short of mine. Oh well. The areas I walked through were pretty, but the only really interesting thing was a somewhat ugly park with giant stones just sort of set up in it. I forget the parks name, but it was referred to as a forest, in Japanese, and a park, square, and garden as an English translation of forest...which was really funny to me.

The last really interesting thing that happened today occured when I went to the station to get back to my hotel. A random Japanese woman just kind of walked up to me when I was about to buy my ticket and, in Japanese, told me that she was giving me her day-pass because she could not use it. It is possibly the most confusing, spontaneous, and nicest thing that has happened to me in Japan. Needless to say I am in a good mood now.

As for the future, tomorrow Ben and I have outright planned to explore separately. I think he has taken to heart some of my suggestions, too, so I guess we are going to an Onsen tomorrow, and maybe Karaoke the next day before our bus. Other than that, I kind of want to go to Nagoya Port, at some point, possibly return to the castle, check out this ferris wheel near our hotel, check out a shoe store near our hotel, and possibly check out this british pub/live music venue...also near our hotel. We'll see how much I care to stick to.

Kobe is for BEEFCAKES

Well, today was explore Kobe day! It was also the warmest day of the trip, so far. Ridiculous! We took a short walk around the island, followed by a long walk to lunch -- which was a pretty lovely cafe. The design and food was kind of Euro-styled (with some Japanese highlights) and the dishes and service were clearly Japanese. What I mean by this is that the building was quaint with bright colors, it had a very rustic feel. The food was like croissant sandwhiches, waffles, etc. But the glasses had like, cute lions and bunnies on them. I got a waffle with a Kabochya (green squash, much like a less smooth textured pumpkin). It wasr pretty tasty.

As for exploring, basically we just found shopping street after shopping street, it was kind of crazy. We did stop around the center of the city and listened to some live performers, called Canvas, for a while, but nothing too exciting happened. The most noteworthy thing we saw was a cowboy shop. It was ridiculously flamboyant, much more so than we would expect from American shops -- though we later discovered they were all imported from America, making everything rather expensive and significantly more sad and frightening. I would have bought a pink cowboy hat and some new boots if it was a little cheaper, though...

Around the evening we stopped in China town for literally 10 minutes, then went to city hall and the park nearby to see the city at night -- as was suggested by Gen. It was rather gorgeous, and we got to hear some musicians practice, which was kind of cool. Afterwards we got some Yakinikku for dinner -- at a place called Ton Ton (I assume Pig Pig). It was really good, and the staff was so friendly! We had Ribeye, Spicy Rib, Miso-Beef Tongue, Assorted Vegetables, a side of Cucumber Kimchi (my favorite type, they did a decent job with it!), and Mango/Vanilla mixed ice cream for desert. I also got a Yuzu Soda (Yuzu is the Citron of Citron Honey Tea, or Yujuchya for those that have read my Korean adventures). It was really nice and fun, the atmosphere was just really friendly and active. I think I prefer Korean Barbeque more, but mainly because it is cheaper and it comes with more sides (we could have ordered those sorts of sides, but it would have added at least 600Y or so for just the lettuce and rice).

We didn't really do much else in Kobe, but it was still a pretty good day. Tomorrow morning we'll either go to a cafe for breakfast, or I might try the hotel's viking breakfast, and by midday we should be in Osaka - by the evening in Nagoya. It's all moving so quickly, it's hard for me to believe we've done so much in such a short time! Oh well, it is good and necessary fun before the next semester begins.

Hiroshima! Part 2

Today ended up being pretty good. Both Ben and I slept in an hour or so later than normal (for me this means 7, for Ben this means I let him sleep until he naturally woke around 11). After that was all exploration -- I feel we covered significant amounts of the city, like the only thing we have not seen that may be worth seeing is the castle...which we could do tomorrow before our bus, maybe.

That said, there is not much to say about the rest of the city. It is pretty, but also kind of dull. The only place really worth mentioning is Hijiyama Park -- which has been my favorite place during this trip, so far. It is a big foresty mountain with a Contemporary Arts Museum and a Manga Library in it. Near the museum are open-air exhibits, free to view, surrounded by the forest. Not to mention the forest itself is absolutely gorgeous. I had the joy of exploring it all and hiking parts of the mountain alone, as Ben and I kind of got annoyed with each other and entered different ways (I am surprised it took this long to happen, we made it a good half of the trip!). We ended up meeting up, and then separating on more jovial terms. For Ben this meant he went back to the hotel to rest. For me this meant I explored the park a bit more, then the residential area near the park, and then got lost going back to the hotel. I ended up almost getting back to the hotel twice, using my own reasoning -- the first time I was at an intersection and chose following a street sign over my own intuition, the second time I was basically just walking down the wrong road. Eventually I called and checked the bus stop we were next to, only to find that I was one stop away so I just walked it in a matter of minutes. It was kind of ridiculous, a tad frightening, but mostly just depressing.

Right now we are doing our laundries, and not much else. Tomorrow we may or may not go to Hiroshima Castle, but probably won't. I think I might get up early and buy shoes, as there is a hole in one of mine that keeps letting water in, but I may put it off until I'm back in Tokyo. Later on we will leave Hiroshima for Kobe! It will be my first daybus in Japan, and mark the return to separate beds for me and Ben! We have been sharing since Kyoto. It is actually a bigger problem during the day, when we want to shove stuff on it or w/e, and I also feel awkward lying on the bed next to Ben if we're both awake. It just seems odd. At night we just kind of pass out on different sides, so it has not been an issue at all. Haha, whatever.