Nagoya

A couple weeks ago I set out on a two day trip to Nagoya! The last time I'd been there was over the Spring Break trip in April. That time we didn't explore the city at all, but just stayed overnight at a hotspring place. When I went back, though, I did get to revisit the same Yoshinoya that we ate at 4 months ago, one drizzly spring morning. It was just as crowded as ever, and equally hard to find within the maze of that underground shopping mall.

Seats about 30, no joke. 

This time I met a friend from the U of M who's been studying abroad there all year. I caught him just 2 weeks before he flies back to MN! So he showed me around the city. We went to the Higashiyama Zoo, where they had elephants, speckled deer, bears, penguins, and all those good zoo-y animals. It was kind of sad to see many of the small, undecorated cages that the animals were in. But what can you expect from only a $5 entrance fee?

Everyone was just beat from the heat. If animals were to sweat, they'd all need a giant sweat-towel to roll around in every few minutes. I could've gone for one too. Throughout the time in Nagoya, the weather hovered around 100 and the humidity barely below that (or so it felt). I must have employed a good many vending machine operators in efforts to stay hydrated. I also  scandalized poor Huckさん at all the restaurants in my demands for frequent water refills.

"Do I really have to be in the picture?"

After the zoo we walked around Sakae, a fancy shopping area, mainly window shopping. One of my goals was to try some Meibutsu, or regional food famous from Nagoya. For this I tried エビ天, or Fried Shrimp with a delicious horseradish dipping sauce. The next day I went for Anko (red bean) toast, and had a so-so conbini sandwich with the famous Misokatsu (breaded pork with miso sauce).

Really diggin' this. Needs whipped cream on top, though.

Headed back to my hostel pretty early and chatted with everyone there in the common room. It had some really creative paintings all over, and cozy bunkbeds in the dorm.

The next day we tromped through more outdoor malls in search of the elusive ankotoasto, then went to an aquarium on the Port. The dolphin show was really stunning. Although everything there made me all the more desperate to go swimming, at least they splashed us a good deal when they swam by.

The dolphins were extra genki after meeting me. 

That evening we train-ed out to Gifu, a nearby city, for their famous fireworks show. It started around 7:30 and didn't finish til 9, with 30,000 fireworks squeezed in between. It felt like an iconic Japanese summer to sit out on the grassy riverbank surrounded by people in yukata eating festival food as the lights exploded overhead. When they finished, the entire city seemed to move like a wave in the direction of the train station.

I made it back just in time to catch my 11pm bus back to Tokushima. Believe it or not, there were very few people traveling back to the countryside on a Saturday night, so I got 2 seats to myself and managed a good 6 hours of sleep. It may have just been my exhaustion from a day well spent, but I like to think it was due to my polished skill of finding sleeping positions on public transport. Those daily commutes and  Greyhound rides back in the states weren't for nothing!

Anyway, despite the heat, it was a good time. Here's a music video of the trip, starting with the busride there.