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tuesday in Nagoya-ish
Today I hung around the Nagoya area for the day. Well, kinda. I checked out of the hotel in the morning, went to the new hotel (somehow the one I was in on Sakuradori side had no empty rooms, but the Shinkansenguchi did), put my stuff there, and then went off to adventure. Which started at Yabuton again for more miso katsu lunch, which was good again.
Then I took a train to Inuyama, which is a small town sorta kinda near Nagoya and Gifu but not trivially near. It's still basically a castle town, it seems -- that plus some big Monkey Town thing, which is apparently an amusement park slash zoo type of thing. I didn't go to that though -- just to the castle, which was about a 20-minute walk from the station.
Inuyama Castle is the oldest standing castle in Japan. The main part dates back to like 1537. (The surrounding parts were mostly destroyed during the Meiji restoration, unfortunately.) It feels kinda like Himeji but smaller, basically -- just a huge wooden structure. There's a "castles of Japan" room on the floor that used to be used for artillery... they have 45 photos of castles and by my count I've been to 15. Kind of crazy, really, since I mean, I don't claim to be a huge history buff or a great tourist, but I go to castles when I can, I guess.
Nice view at the top, BUT the walkway is SUPER NARROW, like 2 feet wide, and the fence is only like 3 feet high! It seriously felt like a strong wind might actually blow me off the top of the castle. Other than that it was pretty nice to be up there. A pair of guys had been kinda stalking me through the castle like "Hey there's that gaijin again", and eventually in the gift shop they finally talked to me. The one had come up from Kumamoto and is a big castle nerd. I dunno.
There are two temples right by the castle, one is called Sanko Inari Jinja (not that Sanko, three lights) and the other is Haritsuna Jinja. Haritsuna has a bunch of benches outside it and was a lot less crowded, so I sat out there for a while deciding what to do next. Eventually bought an omamori and decided to head back to Nagoya.
Went straight to the Dome, getting there at like 4pm, super-early for the game today. It was EMPTY. So I spent a while wandering around, went back to the Dragons museum thing, stuff like that. Got a bento for dinner. Came back to Swallows ouenseki, talked to a few people around me (but for the most part since it was so sparse, people just spread out all over the place). Saw a few characters from Jingu, like the dude with the huge zoom lens camera, and the ponytail guy who was on the big screen a few days ago. And then emailed Taicho and he came over to chat for a while.
As for the game itself, the Dragons won 3-1. You'd seriously think that Tateyama vs Kawai would be largely in the Swallows' favor, but apparently it wasn't. I spent half the game singing Yakult songs and the other half emailing with Kentaro or looking at train schedules and stuff. I'm thinking of trying to go to 白峯神宮 (the Shiramine shrine in Kyoto, which is technically for soccer not baseball but whatever) on Thursday on my way back to Tokyo. I was also originally gonna take local trains to Osaka tomorrow, but oh well, the timing won't work for that.
There are some ramifications of today's game which are either good or bad for you depending on which flying creature team you cheer for and how much you care about winning. I think I'm getting burned out on it though, and besides probably wouldn't be able to be at any postseason games here anyway.
(well, I dunno. I should get my ticket back to the US actually. Was thinking either Nov 3rd or 4th... which would have me here for 1st stage, not that I'd ever be able to get tickets to a game anyway.)
I came back to the hotel straight after the game, aside from getting some snacks in the station, including fries from McDonald's. I can't explain why exactly, I JUST WANTED SOME GODDAMN FRIES. It was weird.
Then I took a train to Inuyama, which is a small town sorta kinda near Nagoya and Gifu but not trivially near. It's still basically a castle town, it seems -- that plus some big Monkey Town thing, which is apparently an amusement park slash zoo type of thing. I didn't go to that though -- just to the castle, which was about a 20-minute walk from the station.
Inuyama Castle is the oldest standing castle in Japan. The main part dates back to like 1537. (The surrounding parts were mostly destroyed during the Meiji restoration, unfortunately.) It feels kinda like Himeji but smaller, basically -- just a huge wooden structure. There's a "castles of Japan" room on the floor that used to be used for artillery... they have 45 photos of castles and by my count I've been to 15. Kind of crazy, really, since I mean, I don't claim to be a huge history buff or a great tourist, but I go to castles when I can, I guess.
Nice view at the top, BUT the walkway is SUPER NARROW, like 2 feet wide, and the fence is only like 3 feet high! It seriously felt like a strong wind might actually blow me off the top of the castle. Other than that it was pretty nice to be up there. A pair of guys had been kinda stalking me through the castle like "Hey there's that gaijin again", and eventually in the gift shop they finally talked to me. The one had come up from Kumamoto and is a big castle nerd. I dunno.
There are two temples right by the castle, one is called Sanko Inari Jinja (not that Sanko, three lights) and the other is Haritsuna Jinja. Haritsuna has a bunch of benches outside it and was a lot less crowded, so I sat out there for a while deciding what to do next. Eventually bought an omamori and decided to head back to Nagoya.
Went straight to the Dome, getting there at like 4pm, super-early for the game today. It was EMPTY. So I spent a while wandering around, went back to the Dragons museum thing, stuff like that. Got a bento for dinner. Came back to Swallows ouenseki, talked to a few people around me (but for the most part since it was so sparse, people just spread out all over the place). Saw a few characters from Jingu, like the dude with the huge zoom lens camera, and the ponytail guy who was on the big screen a few days ago. And then emailed Taicho and he came over to chat for a while.
As for the game itself, the Dragons won 3-1. You'd seriously think that Tateyama vs Kawai would be largely in the Swallows' favor, but apparently it wasn't. I spent half the game singing Yakult songs and the other half emailing with Kentaro or looking at train schedules and stuff. I'm thinking of trying to go to 白峯神宮 (the Shiramine shrine in Kyoto, which is technically for soccer not baseball but whatever) on Thursday on my way back to Tokyo. I was also originally gonna take local trains to Osaka tomorrow, but oh well, the timing won't work for that.
There are some ramifications of today's game which are either good or bad for you depending on which flying creature team you cheer for and how much you care about winning. I think I'm getting burned out on it though, and besides probably wouldn't be able to be at any postseason games here anyway.
(well, I dunno. I should get my ticket back to the US actually. Was thinking either Nov 3rd or 4th... which would have me here for 1st stage, not that I'd ever be able to get tickets to a game anyway.)
I came back to the hotel straight after the game, aside from getting some snacks in the station, including fries from McDonald's. I can't explain why exactly, I JUST WANTED SOME GODDAMN FRIES. It was weird.