Our lodgement for Nagoya was Hostel Ann, located near Kanayama Station – so we weren’t in the heart of Nagoya but a short train ride away.  However, Kanayama was quite a built up little city, and it was really well lit up at night time with bright lights and columns of store signs.  Anyone who has ever visited Japan, or at least seen a picture of a city in Japan, will know that the buildings are lined vertically with signs advertising the stores inside the building, they’re usually colourful and so… i like them… coz they’re all shiny xD

We arrived late, so we had a quick dinner at a ramen place, and crashed pretty early.  The next day was eventful, we started out by looking for a temple that was supposed to be tucked away within the city… but as it turns out… the map we were given, lied.  Again and Again.  So we were lost… but then we found this awesome Panasonic guy who was both busy and VERY willing to find the temple for us.  Annie went and asked him where it was and he just did the whole “uh… eeto.. … … *RUN*” and away he went, with Annie in tow.  He found us the temple, then knicked off.  The temple was tiny, and pretty dodgy… and had a car parked in it. … … .. booo.

So then we went to find another temple that was supposed to be a bit bigger, this all went to plan until i spotted an arcade/distraction.  We went in.

Paul and I had a few games, Annie had a nap.  Paul and I tried these kinda robot-piloting-game-thingies where you sit inside a pod and pilot your robot around and fight other robots.  Apparently I suck.  After we finished, we met a Japanese guy named Ken just outside the pods.  We said a bit of a hello, I asked him a few questions about the game, he was cool.  Also, we quickly noticed that he had amazing english.  So just before we said our goodbyes, we asked him how to get to a place called Oasis 21 (we gave up on the temple).

Oasis 21 is a bus station in the heart of Nagoya, but apparently it was really impressive, and there’s some cool things to do there.  Ken drew up some directions then stopped… what he said next was music to my sore feet:

“Hey I’m about to go home, I can take you to Oasis 21 on the way if you like?”

YES!

Hell yeah, totally just bummed a lift off this dude.  He was really nice, we chatted the whole way, he even gave us a mini tour of Nagoya.  We asked him about his past and he said that he lived in California for a year when he was a kid, and much later he backpacked around Australia.  Eventually we arrived at Oasis 21, where we said our goodbyes and thanked Ken.

Oasis 21 was awesome, I can’t really describe this thing.  I mean ok, there were buses.  But there was like a floating garden too, with this pretty cool water-feature thing, which was basically a thin film of water over a platform which reflected the city lights and the nearby TV tower.  Really nice.

We walked around Nagoya for a bit, it was nice.  Reminded me a little bit of Osaka, but a little more spacious – maybe a little toned down.

After our stroll around Nagoya we went back to Kanayama looking for a feed.  We decided upon an Okonomiyaki place as Paul hadn’t had any yet.  So we checked out this place that did HIROSHIMA style Okonomiyaki – YAY! I’m not that big a fan of Osaka style Okonomiyaki, but i LOVE Hiroshima style Okonomiyaki.  (Educate yourself)

Remnants of our Okonomiyaki

At the Okonomiyaki joint, we met up with Annie’s friend from her first student exchange to Japan, Akane.  Akane was really cool, spoke great english and had an awesome sense of humour.  We finished our feast, checked Akane into the Hostel (she was stayin over the night) then we went to a British Pub.  There I drank my first Guiness (loved it), and got to play some foozball with Paul (i won, of course xD).  We ran into a couple of Americans at the British pub too, at first they seemed harmless, and 1 of them was but the other dude was so fuckin annoying.  We had karaoke planned, so they invited themselves along.  We had a decent time at karaoke, then we went back to our Hostel (they were staying there too ugh…).  So, tired, we went up to our room where “Wanker” invited himself into our room.

We got rid of em, got some sleep, and made off early the next morning to Nagoya station, where we would Shinkansen our way to Mt. Fuji.  Bye Bye Nagoya!

Ciao for Now!