Day 1 in Nagoya

Well rested from a great and comfortable night's sleep at the Mehring hale :) I woke feeling good and ready to explore the city of Nagoya. I headed out with Tamiyo to catch the train with her in the morning around 8:30am. She was going on the same line as I and just stopped earlier for her work. I stopped at the City Hall station for the Nagoya Castle. Last night Jeff told me that I would spend about 2-3 hours at the Nagoya Castle. I thought in my head that was wayyy too long for a castle visit. But, I really did have a great experience at my first castle in Japan. The place was easy to find and was so informative as I got to view exhibits of the history of the area and castle itself, as well as a 3-D movie feature. I took a lot of photos of flowers and gardens today since the castle area flourishes in both.

I got there nice and early at 9am but was suddenly hit with heavy rain from a lightning and thunder storm for about 20 minutes. Luckily, the rest of the day was quite sunny and clear. I walked the streets and observed something really interesting. It was about lunch time and some well dressed business people were on the street picking up trash! I thought to myself that they must be on some sort of community service for getting trouble, but then I kept walking and there were more business people doing the same thing?! I learned tonight that each building or company has a particular day where they are in charge of cleaning their local area and picking up trash! Wow! Can you imagine implementing that in Australia or the USA. And trust me, I was observing them and they do a thorough job looking in drains and behind trees during the clean up!

Another funny photo today was going into a "7 Eleven" type store (which there are many of in Japan) and sooo many people standing there reading the magazines....I guess its OK to do too! I saw the "TV Tower" inspired by the Eiffel Tower with the surrounding ground area named Central Park after NYC's park. There was so much shopping of course around. Underground shopping is soooo huge and you can easily get lost in the underground shopping malls and arcades. There are many many exits and the exit numbers help so you can remember where you came in or out of! (for example one shopping mall underground had exits numbered up to 20).

I got home using the train (and feeling like a local) at around 4pm pretty exhausted, with tired feet, but very happy from another great day in Japan. Dinner made by Tamiyo was delicious again with traditional soba noodles, meat and vegetables. I am looking forward to going to work (early at 6:30am) tomorrow to visit the university where he teaches at.....