Japan Days 1 & 2: Nagoya
On the 13th I flew into Nagoya's Central Japan International Airport, which is 35km away from the city itself and is built on a man-made island. As we were landing, just as I feel when coming into San Francisco, I was looking out the window and wondering whether land was going to show up at some point or whether the plane was going to ditch in the water. Luckily for my non-swimming self, the runway eventually appeared below us.
Ladan met me at the airport and we took a commuter train back to Nagoya. It was a hot, humid, rainy day, and the weather reports said the entire next week would be rainy - aww, man! As it turned out, though, it only rained for part of one more day.
After arriving at the very cool 52-story Marriott Associa Nagoya twin towers, and dropping my stuff off in our 44th-floor room (thanks, Intel!), Ladan had to return to work for the rest of the afternoon while I went out to explore the city.
The first thing I notice is that people are driving on the wrong side of the road. Not only that, but their steering wheels have been put on the wrong side, too. How odd. Next thing I notice is how clean everything is; the streets and sidewalks are smoothly paved and bare of litter. Then I notice how everything looks relatively new - and this is because much of Japan was bombed flat during World War II, Nagoya included. Thus everything in sight is, by definition, not more than 60 years old.
As I walk around, I'm amazed at how courteous drivers are to pedestrians and bikers. It makes sense, because there are just so many of them that is impossible to speed wrecklessly down any street. In the cities, it seems as if most people get to work by means other than personal cars, aided by public transportation that's fast and clean. What a novel idea!
On that first day, I checked out Nagoya-jo, a large castle complex originally built in 1612 but rebuilt in 1959 after being destroyed during the war. As I walked the grounds, groups of schoolchildren enthusiastically shouted "harro!" at me, and some even asked "how are you?" It's not that they never see tourists - because they're actually relatively common - but rather that they seem eager to test out their English. I felt pretty popular after a few hours, as successive groups of children watched me and excitedly waited until I got close enough for them to greet me.
Ladan and I later went to see the park-life Atsuta Jingu, a huge area containing a Shinto shrine that was originally founded 1900 years ago. It's been destroyed multiple times since then (including, of course, burning completely to the ground during WWII) and rebuilt every time. It supposedly once enshrined a sacred sword, an important Imperial symbol. As we walked around near the main shrine and tried to guess what the Japanese signs meant, a security guard approached us with two brochures, handing them to us: "English", he offered. Ah, thanks!
All in all, it was a good introduction to Japan: good sized city, with some interesting sights, but more importantly, it gave me time to just walk among the people, watch them and try to observe everyday life. Lots of little things caught my attention: the extreme rarity of people talking on cell phones; the absolute lack of people talking loudly on cellphones; the prevalence of people typing text messages or surfing the net on cellphones; the efficient use of vertical space evident in so many building designs; the lack of newspaper vending machines; the prevalence of drink (not just soda) vending machines; the lack of billboards shoving ads in your face every second (although the ad-plastered walls of trains, buses, and some buildings pick up some of the slack); the busyness of main streets in the city at every hour of the day; I could go on for hours. These are the things that fascinate me the most about visiting other countries.
After spending Thursday and Friday nights in Nagoya, on Saturday morning we checked out and took a train to Kyoto, where we were based for the remainder of our trip. Those stories coming up. In the meantime, I've posted some pictures from Nagoya.
Ladan met me at the airport and we took a commuter train back to Nagoya. It was a hot, humid, rainy day, and the weather reports said the entire next week would be rainy - aww, man! As it turned out, though, it only rained for part of one more day.
After arriving at the very cool 52-story Marriott Associa Nagoya twin towers, and dropping my stuff off in our 44th-floor room (thanks, Intel!), Ladan had to return to work for the rest of the afternoon while I went out to explore the city.
The first thing I notice is that people are driving on the wrong side of the road. Not only that, but their steering wheels have been put on the wrong side, too. How odd. Next thing I notice is how clean everything is; the streets and sidewalks are smoothly paved and bare of litter. Then I notice how everything looks relatively new - and this is because much of Japan was bombed flat during World War II, Nagoya included. Thus everything in sight is, by definition, not more than 60 years old.
As I walk around, I'm amazed at how courteous drivers are to pedestrians and bikers. It makes sense, because there are just so many of them that is impossible to speed wrecklessly down any street. In the cities, it seems as if most people get to work by means other than personal cars, aided by public transportation that's fast and clean. What a novel idea!
On that first day, I checked out Nagoya-jo, a large castle complex originally built in 1612 but rebuilt in 1959 after being destroyed during the war. As I walked the grounds, groups of schoolchildren enthusiastically shouted "harro!" at me, and some even asked "how are you?" It's not that they never see tourists - because they're actually relatively common - but rather that they seem eager to test out their English. I felt pretty popular after a few hours, as successive groups of children watched me and excitedly waited until I got close enough for them to greet me.
Ladan and I later went to see the park-life Atsuta Jingu, a huge area containing a Shinto shrine that was originally founded 1900 years ago. It's been destroyed multiple times since then (including, of course, burning completely to the ground during WWII) and rebuilt every time. It supposedly once enshrined a sacred sword, an important Imperial symbol. As we walked around near the main shrine and tried to guess what the Japanese signs meant, a security guard approached us with two brochures, handing them to us: "English", he offered. Ah, thanks!
All in all, it was a good introduction to Japan: good sized city, with some interesting sights, but more importantly, it gave me time to just walk among the people, watch them and try to observe everyday life. Lots of little things caught my attention: the extreme rarity of people talking on cell phones; the absolute lack of people talking loudly on cellphones; the prevalence of people typing text messages or surfing the net on cellphones; the efficient use of vertical space evident in so many building designs; the lack of newspaper vending machines; the prevalence of drink (not just soda) vending machines; the lack of billboards shoving ads in your face every second (although the ad-plastered walls of trains, buses, and some buildings pick up some of the slack); the busyness of main streets in the city at every hour of the day; I could go on for hours. These are the things that fascinate me the most about visiting other countries.
After spending Thursday and Friday nights in Nagoya, on Saturday morning we checked out and took a train to Kyoto, where we were based for the remainder of our trip. Those stories coming up. In the meantime, I've posted some pictures from Nagoya.
posted by GregP at 9:20 PM
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