A Great Day in Japan!

Well, yesterday was completely awesome!

Even though I woke up at 2 am, and then 5 am, I still had a magnificent day! (Stupid jetlag!) We ate breakfast at 9 am, and then went out to Nagoya around 10 am. You see, my host family doesn`t actually live in Nagoya. I think they live in more like a suburb of Nagoya. It`s called Gamagori. It`s　about 40 minutes from Nagoya station by train. Once we arrived at Nagoya station, we took the subway to Nagoya castle.

The first thing we run into when we got onto the castle grounds was a Taiko drum exhibition. Sadly, it was just ending, but at least we got to hear it as we were walking in. Once it was over though, they opened up the largest drum for tourists to hit. My host family was eager for me to try it, so I went ahead and did it. Of course, there is procedure in all of this. You bow to the drum and make a wish, then you hit the drum, and then you bow again in respect of the drum. By the way, this drum is the largest drum in the world! It was at least 7 feet in diameter, it was put on its side so that you could strike it. Hitting it was like swinging a baseball hat as hard as you can. It made a really deep boom, which was awesome. Afterwards, we got a picture taken in front of the drum, so I have a picture of it if you want to come get me.

Next, we went to the golden dome. This dome contained the golden dolphins that are normally on top of the the castle. To Americans, they don`t really look like dolphins; they look more like a cross between a fish and a dragon. Because of the Japan Expo Aichi 2005, they had the dolphins off the top of the castle so that people could come see and touch them. We waited in quite a long line (it kind of reminded me of Cedar Point) that went through the history of the golden dolphins. There are two of them - one of them that was on the North side of the castle, and one to the south, and they called on of them the male and one the female. They had slight differences between the two. The original dolphins were put into place in the 1600`s. Throughout the years, the golden scales were stolen a few times, and during WWII, the castle was bombed and the original dolphins burned to the ground. They were reconstructed though for the castle. The golden dolphins serve as a proud symbol of Nagoya.

After a lunch of yakitori, katsu, banana ice cream, some sort of noodles, and something else (I can`t keep track of all this food.) , we went to the Nagoya Castle itself. Surrounded by a moat that now has deer roaming in it, the castle stands floors high. Although it`s not as much now within the skyscrapers of the city, it once stood out among the horizon, and it was said that the golden dolphins could be seen from 4 km away! Because of bombings during WWII, the castle is also a reconstruction, but they didn`t construct it exactly how it was. From the outside, it looks identical, but instead of the normal insides of a castle, a full museum is found inside, including a 3-D theater, relics from the times, and a sky view on the top. It was really awesome, but we were quite tired afterwards from all the stairs and the heat.

Its very hot here. Actually, it`s only probably about 90 degrees during the day time, but with a near 100% humidity almost all of the time, it makes it feel very hot.

After we saw the castle, my host sister and I took the subway to the Nagoya television tower. Its kind of like a mini version of the Eifle tower, to get a general idea of the appearance. On the top sky view, we looked around the city, and my sister pointed out a few of the sights to me. Afterwards, we went to Oasis 21, which was like a manmade garden type of thing. If you want to see pics you can put Oasis 21 Nagoya into the google image search engine. It was quite beautiful, and best of all, it was directly attached to the subway system


After the Oasis 21, we returned home to Gamagori. For dinner, we went to an Italian restaurant. I think its funny how different Japanese Italian and American Italian can be. We center our attention on the pasta side of Italian. In Japan, Italian is all seafood. There was only one thing on the menu that didn`t have fish. I think Japan has got it closer though. They are an island nation like Italy is almost.

Afterwards, we returned to the house and I got out my gifts for them. I gave them an Indiana teddy bear with a Indiana quarter on its foot, chocoloate from DeBrand`s, and Monopoly. I think they liked everything. I taught them how to play Monopoly. It was great fun. Let me tell you, if you want to teach someone Japanese numbers, play Monopoly in Japanese. It was so fun that we kept playing until midnight when their father got home. I thought that meant I was over with jet lag, but I was wrong.

Sorry about that little breakfast break.