Blogs from Nagoya, Aichi, Japan, Asia - page 4

YO:) Saturday, 11th September I'm still having an absolute whale of a time and could actually write forever! I’ll start from the weekend… Saturday some of us decided to meet in Sakae, supposedly ‘main town Nagoya’. We wandered around town, and found a modern complex called Oasis 21 which was just mega sightseeing galore..(pictures on facebook). Lunch was interesting since once again pointing at pictures on the menu got us not really what we wanted but it’s all an experience Sunday, my host grandmother (お母さん) took me shopping and she sorted me out a beautiful Japanese phone which I still find the most exciting thing ever to play with! I can send/ receive e-mails for free on it which is a wonder that shall never get old…(If you want to make my day that little bit ... read more

Having arrived in Nagoya in the afternoon on 16 October 2008, we decided to stroll through the grounds of Nagoya Castle. Whilst walking through the avenue, we saw gardeners and planters selling bonsai pots, assembling the loops to present chrysanthemum, and preparing for chrysanthemum festival. It was mild, sunny, and pleasant afternoon. There were many types of shrubs and trees grown on the grounds of Nagoya Castle and we could hear birds warbling and singing tunefully among the bushes and branches of birches and oaks. We couldn't hear the traffics whilst walking on the woodlands. We found a number of old birches and oaks preserved on the site and learnt that they were planted by historical celebrities over 250 years ago. We rambled through the castle's garden, i.e. Ninomaru Garden featuring pine trees, teahouse, hedges, rocks, ... read more

Port Festival (July 20th) Summertime is filled with hanabi (firework) festivals in Japan and on July 20th Simon and I geared up in our yukatas and headed out to watch some colorful explosions above the Nagoya Port area. The Hanabi at Nagoya port is supposed to be the biggest fireworks festival of the year in Nagoya. We got there very early to get a good spot and check out the area. Near the aquarium we found a rocking ice cream shop with 32 flavors of ice cream. Some were strange such as edamame (edamame are kind of like peas). When the sun started to go down tons of people crowded along the harbor near the aquarium to watch the display. The show was great and longer than I thought it would be. It was aso really ... read more

Well, second day of Nagoya. The first day was pretty cool but there was some stress --- Jordan had no cash and couldn't find an ATM that worked, or we thought. The JP Bank (Japanese post office bank) is supposed to work with almost all American credit/debit cards, but he couldn't get money out of it for some reason. Well, I funded our day yesterday in hopes that he would find money today. We went out last night with his friend Scott who is teaching English here, as well as a lot of Scott's friends. It was pretty cool, Nagoya has good food. Misokatsu is awesome, as well as ebi furyaa. I love Japanese mayonaise. Best mayonnaise in the world, by far. Anyway, this morning we got up and the first mission of the day was ... read more

Ok, so being the mountains the last two days we definitely didn't have the internet. We just made it to Nagoya and we are back in business, so pictures will be up as soon as we put them on the computer. Not sure where the last post left off, but we stayed in Yokohama for a day and have some good pictures from it. We rode the biggest ferris wheel in the world, did a few rollercoasters, and then biked about 25 miles around the city. Yeah, 25 miles. It actually wasn't that bad. At night, there was absolutely nothing to do and we got frustrated walking around looking, so we just went back to the hotel and crashed. The next day we headed to Hakone. Took us a little while to get there (bullet train ... read more