Nagoya, not boring at all: robot violins, eel, and corn dogs

Just a reminder, here are some previous posts about our trip to Japan at the end of May/early June:

When I decided we should go to Nagoya, I knew this was against recommendations: most people say, oh, Nagoya is boring, don’t go to Nagoya, you won’t see anything different there. But I included Nagoya in our itinerary for two reasons: 1) The violin playing Robot at the Toyota Commemorative Museum and 2) It was near where we needed to meet up to start our hiking tour.

We did have to do a little backtracking, as we had been to Nagoya station already en route from Kyoto to Takayama, but it still made sense, IF we wanted to see Takayama, which I am so glad we did.

Day 9: We woke up and had breakfast at Ryokan Kaminaka.

Louie wore his yukata to breakfast, because he could. He also decided to visit the onsen one more time in the morning. After breakfast we packed up to catch the train to Nagoya.

This phone was in our room. We loved that it was on a pillow.

A last picture of the cool hallway we walked down. We loved this hotel: very clean, the owner was scary at first, but actually very sweet and kind and we would stay there again.

The train station was very nice and easy to get to. It always feels like the trip from a hotel to the train station is shorter than the trip from the train station to the hotel.

The train station was very modern looking. I suspect as tourism has grown the train station grew with it. In any case, we bought coffees at a shop and then headed for the gate, only to realize first we had to wait in a long line to enter the gates. No worries, as we had assigned seats: I booked “green car” seats for this ride, which were an upgraded seat. We did have a little more leg room and foot rests, though the seats had always been comfortable.

The train ride was lovely, relaxing, and uneventful. We arrived in Nagoya around noon and caught the subway to our hotel, the Lamplight Books Hotel. We dropped off our bags and then headed to lunch. Louie found a nice looking lace nearby and went in: we had to order at the counter and we were ordering by picture. It was some fried chicken pieces, rice, some veggies, and soup for 1000 yen. After we sat down I asked for water (mizu) and they brought that plus a pitcher to refill, so I thought. It turned out the pitcher had unsweetened iced tea in it, so that was funny.

After lunch we walked around the historic area of Nagoya and more places in the area.

Spaghetti and Coffee, classic combination

We went back to the hotel to get coffee, but I decided we should go get walking sticks for me since my foot was still bugging me. I found a great running/walking shop and found some nice lightweight fold up sticks, and Louie got some socks too. One big mistake I made was not also buying a pair of flip flops there: there was a pair but it was more than I wanted to pay plus I was worried I would hurt my big toe to save my little toe.

After that we checked into the hotel and did a load of laundry. This was a “western style hotel” with beds and showers. We had a small room with a balcony. No onsen, crazy! The hotel had books on the first floor that you could borrow as well as some for sale, and there were a few books in the room as well.

I had bought tickets for a symphony concert that night, the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, NOT to be confused with the Vienna Philharmonic, which I absolutely had. I forgot to mention earlier: I had to pick the tickets up at a Lawson convenience mart, and that was a bit of an adventure. You use an automated machine to do so, but it was really difficult to find the buttons to turn it into English. Finally I got it to work! Our hotel was well situated across the street from a Lawson and with several 7-11’s within another block or two.

But I digress: we were running later than planned due to the laundry, so we ended up taking a cab to the concert, which was very easy.

The program was Dvorak Carnival Overture, Ravel piano concerto, and Dvorak New World Symphony. I loved the program and thought the orchestra was great.

Those things that look like curtains aren’t: they are plaster or something. The hall was full, probably sold out, and the audience very appreciative. The pianist played an encore, an arrangement of An American in Paris with bass, trumpet, and drums. And at the end of the concert the orchestra played two encores: a Slavonic dance, and then thunder and lightning polka, gotta have a waltz or polka if you are Viennese, right?

To get to the hall, you entered the facility, but went up and up and up on escalators. It was an arts center with a variety of venues within in, and it seemed the hall was on the 4th or 5th floor. So afterwards, we went back down all the same escalators. It was quite a place!

We were ready for dinner after that but had trouble figuring out where. One thing we ran into was finding a good looking place on Google or Tabelog, but then not being able to find it in real life. In this case, we found what we thought was a good izakaya, but ended up at some student type place. You had to order from the website which made it easy though. We wanted to switch tables to one less drafty (right next to us, which was empty) but they wouldn’t let us!

I ordered what I thought was a fruit sour with peach and then Louie got a highball. The drinks arrived while I was in the restroom. I enjoyed my drink, but it wasn’t too fruity so I decided to order Louie’s drink next since it was delicious and fruity. Well, this round of drinks came out and we realized that I had been drinking his highball and he drank my drink! So a second highball for me, and then we had to order a third round so I could get the white peach cocktail I initially wanted.

Food wise we had some weird stew things including what was basically a corn dog, then a “tofu salad’ that I thought had tuna salads on it though Louie wasn’t in agreement on that. We also got pickles. It was some strange food but worth it for the hilariousness of the drinks.

Louie and the tofu salad.

We walked back to the hotel from there and enjoyed the liveliness of Nagoya before going to bed. It certainly was different than Takayama!

Day 10

We slept in a little bit–until 8 am or so, and then got breakfast at the hotel. I had paid 5-6 dollars for each breakfast, which included a drink and two breakfast sandwiches. The coffee was good, the sandwiches were meh: tiny and just reheated in the microwave. Very cute though.

We took the train to the Toyota Commemorative Museum next. The train system in Nagoya was easy to use: just tap your phone for your Suica card like in Kyoto and Tokyo. We got to the museum around 10 am, and right off the bat we knew this was a cool place. The exhibits talked about the history of the Toyota company with tons of machines. First we spent about an hour in the section about textiles.

Toyota was first a textile company, did you know?

Next we went to see the robot violin demonstration, which was only at certain times during the day, so I wanted to make sure to see it.

Here are some links to see it play! Pachebel’s Canon and another one.

If you watch the videos, you’ll see that it actually isn’t very good BUT it is also amazing. A robot playing the violin! But I’m not likely to be replaced by it any time soon.

Next we headed for the automotive side of the museum, which took awhile. It’s huge, plus Louie loves this stuff.

My obsession with little trucks continued.

Around 1:00 I convinced Louie to take a break so we could eat: I figured he still needed at least another hour and I would be very cranky by then. We went to the restaurant there and had pretty good noodles with shrimp tempura and coffee after.

Louie went back to the automotive part after lunch and I watched the robot violin again before meeting up with him.

We stayed at the museum until about 3:30 then walked over to the Noritake gardens and store (ceramics).

It was a beautiful day! My feet were killing me by then so we took a cab back to the hotel.

We rested a bit and then it was time for dinner. I had made a reservation at an eel restaurant named Okafuji. I had reserved a set menu.

The first course had sashimi as well as a variety of tastes of little salad-like things.

Then the second course came out but only mine. Fried eel, some little fishes, and a savory egg custard dish with tomato (chawanmushi). We waited and waited, but they didn’t bring Louie’s out.

Finally a woman stopped and using an online translator told us they ran our of food and would be bringing him something different. No problem, we said, so we split my food and waited for his. When they brought his course, we realized the only thing they had run out of was the custard though, his was hot with seafood and mushrooms instead of cold like mine, and the rest of the items were the same. He actually preferred the hot one anyway!

The next course was the main thing we were there for: hitsumabushi. You get eel in a sauce over rice and you eat it four ways: 1) on its own. 2) with green onions and wasabi. 3) with dashi (broth). 4) Your favorite way. All were good but we both liked with green onions and wasabi the best, so I guess we both preferred #4.