One Day in Nagoya, with Tatami!
In my previous post (click here!), I've finished writing about my days in Tokyo. I woke up at 6 in the morning to find out that I'm already in Nagoya, so I packed my charging devices into my backpack, and our bus dropped me somewhere 5 minutes of walk from Nagoya train station.
I finished my onigiri that I bought before boarding the bus around 1am, so I certainly felt a little hungry. It was raining lightly since 1am, so I was thinking that maybe the rain would stop soon enough, and headed to Lawson to buy bento, another vitamin drink, a couple of riceballs so that I can have a picnic in Tsurumi park or something, but the sky said NO and it continued raining and raining, even until night. So I had my 'picnic' when I arrived my room instead lol
Due to a little misunderstanding between the check-in time between my host and I, and thankfully I was lucky enough to arrive early in the morning that I am able to find a coin locker that is huge enough to put both my 18kg luggage and my backpack. I took out another handbag to put my medicine and painkillers, my powerbank, USB, the food I bought from Lawson, and an umbrella. My locker cost me 600 yen because it's the largest one available but hey, my backpack and luggage are HUGE so what can I complain about?
By the time I boarded the train to Osu-Kannon, it's almost 7:15 in the morning because I had absolutely no idea why Nagoya's train stations are so confusingly large, as well as the insane crowd queueing outside the female washrooms, like... '( /___\ ) w h y
I was expecting to see many people in Osu Kannon because it's a weekend, but I guess everyone decided to sleep their Sunday off, except me. I got myself a Donichi pass. Donichi actually means Doyoubi and Nichiyoubi. The Donichi pass is 600 yen and you can use it for a single day. That day, however, must be either a Saturday or a Sunday. With the Donichi pass, you can use the subways or city buses without any limitations, as well as getting discounts in entrance fees! (Click here for more details!)
Well, as soon as I got off Osu-Kannon station, I walked my way to Osu-Kannon and...
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| Outside of Osu-Kannon, Nagoya |
It seems like I might be the first visitor of the day or something because it's so quiet. The only noises you hear here are from the pigeons. The pigeons here are SO CHUBBY and they aren't afraid of humans too.
I walked up to the stairs and see another two person praying. I looked around the shrine and prayed for a safe journey in Japan. I didn't take a photo of the inner part of the shrine because I'm not sure if it's forbidden, but as I stepped out, I saw this man tidying these joss sticks (in other words, incense) and I got curious. Because I am a Buddhist (but not totally devoted by all means oops) and I have never seen joss sticks in any colors other than pink, brown and black in my life. I approached him and asked if it's okay to take a photo, and he just went "Sure, why not?" and so I did.
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| Outside the inner hall of Osu-Kannon |
Apparently, there are many types of incense in Japan. It wouldn't be surprising to see colors like purple or yellow or blue outside the shrines too. The colors are actually depending on how the manufacturers made them, and the fragrance comes from the type of the tree/ plant used for the incense. In my home country, we also have incense that are spiral and they come in different sizes, but I have yet to see any of those throughout my trip in Japan, and not all shrines or temples have places for people to offer incense.
I stayed around Osu-Kannon until 8:30 in the morning because I was staring at the pigeons, then I passed by this K-mart, which is one of the convenience stores that are more commonly seen around Nagoya and Nara. I didn't see any of these when I was in Tokyo, Kyoto or Osaka. Or maybe it's just me being a little ignorant about the convenience stores. I was in need of a drink, but as soon as I see the collaboration between this store, Meiji Chocolates and Ichiban Ketsu (DMM and Rejet's online game) that involves fusing God-like characters into different kinds of characters and Hosoya's character is one of the 8 Gods that you fuse as new children (Jiraiya is his character's name coughs) ewe
While stock lasts, if you buy any two packets of Meiji chocolates that are involved with the collaboration, you can pick one out of 8 of the designs of this small ziplock pouch lol. I bought two packets of chocolate and paid a little less than 280 yen using my PASMO, along with Jiraiya and his pouch was the last one available in the Osu-Kannon branch. I feel so blessed on that day because I didn't manage to get him in the game. \o/
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| Jiraiya (Ichiban Ketsu) Ziplock Pouch from Nagoya |
And later on I abused my pass to explore around (partially got lost too) the Nagoya subway. I also boarded the wrong train by accident but after that I got used to the subway lines in Nagoya. When I told my friend Komori about it, he told me that Nagoya has the most confusing subway stations throughout Japan and I was like "No way, even for the Japanese?" and he laughed while nodding. I feel proud for my achievement in Nagoya. \o/
My next stop was Atsuta Jingu. It took me quite some time to walk from the station to Atsuta Jingu, but along the walk I see adorable children dressed up in kimono and I was immediately reminded about shichi-go-san. However, since I did not enter Atsuta Jingu via the main entrance, I actually found myself in the souvenirs area, which was at the west gate. I bought these salty-sweet dango (called Mitarashi dango) and a taiyaki (fish-shaped cake). The dango was 100 yen and the taiyaki was 300 yen. I enjoyed these so much as I ate them at the rest area.
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| Mitarashi Dango from Atsuta Jingu |
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| Taiyaki from Atsuta Jingu |
Because I play Mystic Messenger, and 707 insisted that the stomach was the best part of fish-shaped cake, I immediately bit the stomach area. However... I find the head part being the best part for me so I guess it really depends on individuals.
However, if 707 is ever my friend, we could share different parts of the taiyaki, which isn't a bad idea after all. :D
As I walk into the shrine, I witnessed several wedding ceremonies on the same day. It makes me wonder if it's a sign that I should actually think of marriage, but I also feel that I have too many responsibilities that relationships should probably be placed aside until I could at least have a stable career.
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| Traditional Japanese wedding ceremony ongoing in Atsuta Jingu |
It was crowded in Atsuta Jingu, and as I proceed to wanting to try my luck in omikuji, there were actually these two rude Japanese adults that acted a little like yankees (but I'm kind of sure they aren't). They were being rude and disrespectful towards the Miko (witches in Japanese shrines) that was in charge of the omikuji and sales of charms.
For payments in Japan, we usually could see a tray for customers to place their coins/ dollar notes on it properly after we placed our order or when it is the time for us to pay. However, these two brat-like adults was being all loud and just tossed the coins into the tray in an incredibly disrespectful manner while laughing things off while getting their omikuji. I swear I could see how irritated the Miko was and she glared at these two men for that one split second and calmed herself down right after. I salute her for not getting angry, because if I were in her place I'd probably give those two a death stare, or even a lecture and also secretly praying that they would receive the worst luck possible.
But somehow those two got a chuukichi (中吉/ average good fortune) and I was rather pissed for no reason. When it was my turn, I only manage to get shokichi (小吉 / small fortune) but I was like, oh well I'll just tie it onto the rack later on. The fortunes here have no English version, but if you'd like to see one with the English version, you can find one in Sensoji temple of Asakusa or Fushimi Inari shrine in Kyoto.
Usually, when you tie your fortune slip onto a given rack, you pray for the bad luck to disappear. If you have good luck, you could choose to keep it, or to tie on the rack and pray for better luck. These omikuji would tell you about what might happen and some of them also give advise on how you should live with the fortune. However, I was also told not to completely believe in it and feel too bad about these omikuji as well. C:
I stayed until 2.30 pm and looked around their little museum (where no photography is allowed) and they have this giant ass sword in front of the exhibition hall, like WHOA HOW DOES ONE EVEN CARRY THAT THING INTO BATTLE ????
And I arrived Nagoya castle at 4:10pm, which was just a little before the closing hours because I got a little lost on my way to the castle by train. My friend, Yuu-tan told me that it was ギリギリセーブ, which means that I barely made it lol. Anyways here is the view of Nagoya castle when it was raining. (The rain was one of my reasons of not visiting any parks and stayed around the shrines for a long time) :'D
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| Nagoya Castle on a rainy day |
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| An employee in the Nagoya castle explaining about the history of the castle |
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| Small part of the Nagoya Castle |
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| Matcha Ice Cream Float in Nagoya Castle |
When you have a craving for ice cream, YOU HAVE A CRAVING OKAY.
FACT. lol
Anyways I left Nagoya Castle around 5pm and walked to the wrong direction to take the subway home lol. I was supposed to take the subway from Shiyakusho but it turns out that I stupidly walked to Kurokawa station without knowing myself until I checked the GPS. /__\
Collected my luggage from Nagoya station and dragged myself to my room in Kamimaezu. I solemnly swear that I was all curses when I carried my bag and luggage on and off the stairs like... IS THERE NO ELEVATORS FOR THE EXIT THAT I NEEDED? And I solemnly swear that I hated Nagoya's subway stations so much even though I finally got the gist on how to ride their subways.
And there goes my day in Nagoya! After cleaning my bag and luggage that suffered from the rain with dirty wheels, I dragged the bags into the tatami room and lay them flat so that the straw tatami mat wouldn't be dented, because I can't leave my bags at the corridor or else there wouldn't be enough space to walk, or else I wouldn't usually put anything heavy on a tatami mat.
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| My Tatami room! |
My Airbnb host wasn't home until late evening, so he made sure that everything are okay and I was like yes yes everything's okay thank you so much \o/ and happily have my 'picnic' in my room because my park picnic clearly did NOT happen due to the rain. :(
I also had a hot bath and panicking over how much money I have left because I've used already 40% of my budget for the trip. I also panicked when I read that I could only bring a bag of not heavier than 10kg on my next bus because my luggage was freaking 18kg. I contacted Naoki, another friend of mine from Hiroshima that travels around very often and he assured that everything will be fine. I wasn't able to visit him this round in Japan because I didn't have plans to drop by Hiroshima and return to Osaka again because he initially wanted to drop by Osaka, but turns out that during my days in Osaka he would be having a marathon in Okinawa so the plans vanished into thin air. :'D
There were also a series of manga in the corner of the room so I flipped through a few pages before going to bed while trying my best to clean and dry my shoes beside the heater because it got completely soaked under the rain and my legs were completely feeling nothing else but cold :'D
In the following morning I checked out at 9am to catch up my 11am bus, and before that I had a look around the streets of Tsurumai and the park before taking the JR line from Tsurumai to Nagoya station, then hopped on my bus in Meitetsu Bus Center (in short, Meitetsu BC) to Kyoto! I was the only passenger that boarded from Meitetsu BC on that day and I was a little amused that I felt like a queen, and my friends were saying that I hijacked the bus lmao but later on there are passengers coming aboard as the bus stops in various stations along the way to Nagoya.
And that ends my post for today in Nagoya!
I'll talk about Kyoto in my next few posts! Until next time!
