July 7th Nagoya

July 7th, Nagoya.

Today I woke up a little bit later, around 7am.
I'm going to Nagoya today to visit my japanese pen pal.

I caught the shinkansen train from Tokyo train station. (Asakusa-Mitsuke subway to Tokyo Train Station, then to JR-Shinkansen Hikari train to Nagoya station.) Today i got the train bound for Nagoya station, at 10:45am, and i arrived in Nagoya around 12:26pm. I walked around the station, lots of little stores and food centers, and Softmap store, which carried cameras, computer stuff, DVD's, Anime stuff, and etc...... I bought a camera soft case for my digicam for only 800 yen. I finally met up with my pen pal at the Silver Clock around 1:30pm. She took me around the area, first walking around the station. It is all connected to the station, big malls! We then went to Nagoya castle, just 10 minutes from the station by car. It reminded me of other ones I have seen in Japan. It was 500 yen entry fee into the Nagoya Castle. Riding in her car was interesting, from the Japanese local's point of view. The driver side is on the oppoosite side, and also, cars drive on the opposite side of the road, which was very odd, interesting. There was some traffic, and a bit hectic with lack of space at times. Parking is limited, but somewhat available and expensive in Japan. I don't recall the actual prices, but it could cost 500 to 600 yen per 30 min in some places! We then walked around the Osu area in Nagoya, which was about 30 min drive from Nagoya castle, with all the traffic lights and streets. Osu kind of reminded me of Nishiki market area in Kyoto with all the long corridor ally ways. But in the Kyoto Nishiki market had all the food markets and other stores too, while Osu had various stores and some 100 yen shops, and crepe and Takoyaki booths/shops. Afterwards, we went to a Japanese izakaya, japanese bar/restarant. The ambience was nice, and the food was good, but expensive. The food bill came out to 8400 yen for the both of us. Later, we went to Nagoya station as I had to catch the Hikari Shinkansen #386 train at 8:58pm back to Tokyo. I arrived just before 11pm in Tokyo station, then took the subway from there back to Akasaka-Mitsuke station, where my hotel was at. I stopped in one of my favorite combini(convenience store) to pick up some rice balls, some snacks, and some drinks. Then I went back to my hotel room to turn in the for the evening.