Tarto in Japan

Here it is, my first visit to Nagoya ! Let me remind you that I don't live in Nagoya but in Okazaki, about 40 kilometers from Nagoya. There were 9 of us, mostly from the UK and US. I hadn't gathered any information about the city, so I just followed the group (well to be precise, there was only one girl who knew the city and she guided us all). Upon arriving in late morning, we splitted in two groups, some went to visit a traditional ceramics workshop. We were hungry and went to the big Takashiyama department store located inside the station, to have lunch and do shopping. Takashiyama is another major Japanese department store, just like Mitsukoshi and Daimaru I told you about in a previous post, and it's really huge : 13 floors of shops and restaurants, plus other restaurants with a panoramic view on the 51st floor of the building!

Not much to say, we ate at a Japanese restaurant that had a traditional but artifical atmosphere. It was expensive and the food was just average. Sure, I could've guessed that before...I should've chosen the ceramics option, but anyway...

We also quicky went to the Bic camera store, because one of us needed a plug adaptor. Bic camera, a very famous shop in Japan, is a large electronics store, it's impossible not to find what you're looking for!

Anyway it's pretty easy to find, you just need to look at the index...

Then we all went to Nagoya castle. It was built by Iegasu Tokugawa, one of the most important figures of Japanese history. He was not the first shogun, but he was the first shogun to actually unify Japan and to establish his power among the whole country. He founded a dynasty that ruled Japan for about 250 years (Edo period, approximately from 1600 to 1850)! To avoid confusions, I'll make it clear that the shogun was NOT the emperor. He was the military chief, while the emperor was the head of government, but the actual power was controlled by the shogun.

The castle and view were not very nice though (in my opinion), sure the haze didn't help but still...Here are a few pics so that you see for yourself:

We went back to Okazaki around 5PM. It was a rather short visit, I didn't see much, but I plan to go back to Nagoya within the next 3 months and explore the city more deeply. Actually there's a major festival next week-end to celebrate the coming autumn, we definitely want to go and check it out!