Two days is not enough to really get a sense of a city, but we did decide that we quite liked Nagoya. It is not nearly so crazy busy as Tokyo or Osaka, but it has its own style, its own appeal. Just before we came on this trip I read an article online from CNN, which talked about Nagoya trying to shake is reputation as the most boring city in Japan. That seems rather harsh.
I’ve talked about the history – the castle and the palace. And there are some venerable old shopping streets. We were right near a very buzzy area full of clubs and bars – not that we saw them in full swing (early to bed for us after a day of being tourists.)
We did walk out on Friday night, and things were lively. We were headed to see the Oasis 21 site, which is to be seen at night, all lit up.
Pretty cool, eh? The big spaceship thing is just that – a thing! It hovers over an underground complex. There is a big bus terminal, and a connection to the subway and train systems. There is an underground shopping centre, and directly below the spaceship thing there is a huge open area used for events.
Walking about on a Friday night it became apparent that every wannabe musician in Nagoya sets up on the sidewalks and in the park to sing and play their hearts out. One of the (many) subway entrances lets out two floors below street level, into what is basically a big stairwell. There was a stage set up down there and an all male JPop group was giving it their all. I’m guessing that performing at the bottom of a stairwell in front of a subway station is pretty far down the food chain of the pop music industry, but there was crowd hanging over the railings at street level and down below there was a rapturous crowd of sweet young things singing along and dancing to the music.
And so went a Friday night in Nagoya….
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