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Published: October 11th 2007
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We arrived in Nagoya train station, and proceeded to look for the ryokan that Susan had booked for us and where we will meet. Within 30 minutes of arriving in Nagoya, we got ourselves lost, and could not find the damn place. Then, out of nowhere, a beautiful Japanese girl walks up to us, and asks us if we're looking for Ryokan Ichifuji. And then lead us to it. Amiit said thoughtfully afterwards, nodding his head, "she was an angel." And then looked at me "we're going out tonight!"
After Susan finally arrived at 9PM, we promptly got dressed, and headed out, looking for a party and some food... and got lost again. It was a bit like the twlight zone actually because at 9-10ish, all the streets were extremely quiet and completely empty. We nearly gave up all hope of finding life and a lively place for small bites and drinks.
That's ok after 20 minutes of wandering, we eventually found a street with statues from Wizard of Oz, and followed the concrete road which lead us to a nice little japanese restaurant with Yuki and Rina, who told Amit he looked like Mike from Prison Break. After dinner we
wandered around some more and stopped by a bar, where, by the end of the night, we'd made friends with Sachiko, Maya, Ellie, and Jacko (Jacko was the bartender)!
Jacko was very cool and hooked me up with some Maker's Mark, after two shots of which, I announced that we shall have an Irish Car Bomb. Everything after that Irish Car Bomb was a blur to me, I do vaguely remember seeing Amit holding Sachiko's hand, and me asking if he was going to stay, and him smiling happily and waved goodbye to me, and me eating a rice ball sometime later as Susan lead me home.
Apparently some time after we left, Amit tried to find his way back and got lost a third time in Nagoya, eventually finding his way back again with the help of Toto.
The next day we saw the Inuyama Castle, 1 hour outside of Nagoya. The place is dubbed Japan Rhine, and is a castle sitting by a river. The scene was incredible, and it took us some time to realize that the reason the river was so beautiful was because there was no trash anywhere in sight.
After the castle, Amit,
still hungover decided to go home, while Susan and I went on to Meiji Mura, which is basically a Japanese equivalent of Williamsburg. The place was very nice and relaxing, and everywhere we walked there was faint music in the background and a sweet scent in the air. And of course, it being Japanese, everywhere you look, the closest attention has been paid to every little detail, it was like walking through a picture book.
After Meiji Mura we went out to Gifu to see Cormorant Fishing. Basically they take us out in a boat, and a bunch of fisherman then come out and fish with the Cormorants (it's called Ukai). At the signal of fireworks, these fishermen light up a torch at the head of the boat, and have 6-7 cormorants on leashes, and the birds go crazy catching fish in the river. The whole experience was quite festive and picturesque. And cold.. and we were hungry.
If we had properly planned this experience like all the Japanese on our boat did, we would have been feasting on delicious bento boxes and fish skewers. But instead Shugi and I munched on stale garlic bread and eyed the food around us longingly.
Luckily, our cold and hungry state was quickly improved after we got off the boat and found a hole-in-the-wall noodle joint. They served a noodle soup with flat wide noodles...apparently a specialty of the region. It was plain but wonderfully delicious and warming with a very basic soy sauce broth and benito. On a warm and content stomach, we started our nearly 2 hr long train commute back to our quaint little Ryokan Ichifugi in the suburbs of Nagoya. This Ryokan has the best shower/bath I've experienced. It has a unique mixture of traditional bathing luxuries mixed with modern showerheads. The shower/bath room is a bit like a wooden steam room with a large wooden tub filled with hot water. Next to the tub are three shower areas with little wooden stools for you to sit on and little wooden buckets for you to dump water on yourself. If you're not accustom to showering with wodden buckets, the perfectly pressurized showerheads are heavenly. With such a shower/bath, our long day and stay in Nagoya area came to an end...
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