My first full day in Nagoya city

It was hecka eventful too!!!

Woke up in the morn and made a few phone calls to family and loved ones, and then went out and got some pancakes at McDonalds. Until I find something better, this will be done every morning as it is only 300 yen. AfterI ate, I came back to my hotel (Daiichi Fuji Hotel) and called my friends in Japan to let them know I am here and see if we can meet up eventually. Saki's phone kept ringing and ringing, Taka was drunk sleeping, and Atsushi (who I met on MySpace) was ready to pick me up at my hotel in about an hour and a half. Fine I have time.

I went to Nagoya Station, trying to figure out where the bank was so I could transfer money to yen. I looked all throughout the VERY BUSY station only to just see myself tired, and come up empty handed. I need to find that place soon with all of these US dollars on me, and my yen supply dwindling. I give up and go back to meet a Atsushi outside my hotel. Is he going to be driving the R32 Skyhline GTR, or the Integra. I hope the Skyline...

IT'S THE SKYLINE!!! I was sitting in front of my hotel waiting and recording video of life happening outside, when I hear the roar of the engine, sound of turbos and a blow off valve, and a Skyline cruising by me passing up the hotel. After a minute he comes back around and I am officially starting my first ride in a Skyline. For the whole day there was too much traffic for him to really open up, but he did do so once or twice and it THREW me back into my seat, I almost cried, it was so beautiful.

He asked me what I wanted to do and I just said give me the "New person to Nagoya tour", which started at Nagoya Castle. Now here is a bit of a disclaimer, warning, whatever. This is the Japanese summer I think, which means hot and muggy. So here in Nagoya, it is completely cloud covered and overcast, 85% degrees and feels like you are in a sauna, so any pictures you see of me, I may be very shiny, that isn't normal I swear! We drive around for about 10 minutes and get to the parking structure of the castle which is about 2 lvls underground, like a lot of things in Japan so far. We head up to the castle grounds and Atsushi and I buy our tickets, Gohyaku en I believe (500 yen, you will learn Japanese with me if you keep reading this), and they give me a pamplet in English, how cute. Atsushi gives me his personal tour of the castle grounds and the castle itself. Now this castle is interesting. It is very important in Japanese history, but unfortunately, was destroyed in the past, and rebuilt into a museum. So you look outside and see this majestic castle, then go inside and it feels like any other museum.

The inside has a lot of art, items, and information on life back in the times when this castle served it's purpose. They had a cool thing with 3 mock up guys pulling a block with wheels under it, to show you how they were able to build such a castle with minimal man power. You were even able to pull the same rope they were grabbing and pull the block and column they stood on. The power of hydraulics and a little pulley. On the top floor is an observatory deck that lets you see Nagoya from a HIGH vantage point at all 4 sides of the deck. Now remember that 85% humid overcast weather I mentioned? You took note of that? Now add HEAVY rain to that equation. When we got up there it was absolutely POURING rain down on the sometimes unprepared visitors who were outside, I couldn't stop laughing though at all of the chaos that was going on with people down there, it was great!

When we were done with inside the castle, we went out for ice cream and I got to see a cute cat with a weird short tail, like somone cut it off or something. We were about to exit when I wanted a good pic of the castle before I left, which I got, then Atsushi took a pic of me with it in the background, which you will see in the pics. Some random girl saw that and asked us if we wanted her to take a picture of the both of us, and she did, you will also see that in there. So after all of the pictures we headed out of the castle to go somewhere else. On our way out we ran into the 3 girls who are training with me this week, Laura, Elspeth (I think) and Becky. They asked me earlier if I wanted to go with them to the castle and I knew I had plans with Atsushi so I declined, but I said I may see them there, so here it was, I saw them. I told them to have fun and make sure they see everything and we all made plans to meet for dinner.

As we left the castle grounds, we saw a bunch of flags of some sort with TOO much Kanji for me to read, but Atsushi told me, it was for sumo wrestlers. Now I was told the sumo tournament started this day inmy very own backyard here in Nagoya, so that was kinda cool. Now I have watched sumo on TV before and seen a few documentaries on Americans who come here to do sumo, and they always show them rolling around in these cool vans. Now wouldn't you know, we come up to a section with about 100 people standing around with cameras, and what rolls up, 2 or 3 of those cool vans with sumo wrestlers in them!!! We stood around for about 3 minutes to watch them from afar while the crowd went wild.

We eventually made it back to the car after getting lost a little and decided to go get food. I mentioned I loved Japanese curry so Atsushi took me to CoCo Ichi Ban, a chain of curry places. This ride was about 35 mins or so, but I got to have more time in the kick ass Skyline, and he opened it up on the way there, which will always be remembered. Driving in a car in Japan, when you are used to driving on the other side of road and being a passenger on the right, is goint to take some getting used to. I keep thinking he is going to go the wrong way and hit oncomming traffic. He never did though, amazing!

We get to CoCo Ichi Ban eventually and I order Tonkatsu curry, with a regular amount of rice (there are about 8 options on rice amount) and regular heat (there is 1 - 10 scales of heat. 6 - 10 have disclaimers) and it was totemo oishii (very delicious). Afterwards we headed out and went to the Toyota Automobile Museum, which was about a 20 minute ride. This place had some VERY old Toyotas and even some other Japanese and foreign cars (now that I am in Japan, American cars are foreign). We spent a good 2 hours or so in here snapping pics and laughing at sports cars with 110 HP, and family cars with 9.7 horsepower. Look at the pics for a good idea of what went on in there.

After this we were thirsty and I was getting tired so we headed for the conbini to grab a drink. (conbini is a convenience store, which have everything and are everywhere here) Something kinda funny happened when Atsushi and I bought our drinks. The girl at the counter sold him his drink and was done, but when I bought mine, she offered me a bag to go with it. Atsushi was pretending to feel hurt because they didnt offer him a bag too. Poor Atsushi!

It was getting close to the time of dinner with the girls so we headed to Atsushi's house to drop off his car. This was cool because he had his black Integra parked outside of his house, which was next door to his dad's, a dentist, office. How convenient! We walked from his house to the subway station and he thought he should have moved his car into the garage in case his dad needed space, so I stayed at the station and he ran back to do that. When he arrived we rushed on the train so we wouldn't be late, but we got ON the train at the same time we agreed to meet the girls for dinner. We were about 6 stops from the Nagoya station stop where my hotel was near and the meeting place of said dinner plans. We got there at about 6:30, just to see the girls walking around the opposing corner, we were all late. Since Atsushi and I ate earlier, we weren't hungry and the girls decided on Pepper Lunch, which seemed like a good dinner. Atsushi and I had beer for dinner, him, 1, me 2.

During dinner it was kind of funny. The girls would have a convo with me in English and I would slow it down and mix it with what Japanese I know so Atsushi could understand and follow. Then we all just had our own seperate conversations an Atsushi made me practice my Japanese, so I could one day speak to him in ONLY Japanese, which will be great for me to achieve, I now have my first goal. After dinner was done, Atsushi and I said ou good byes and thanks and I headed to my hotel to relax, do homework for my first day of training, and write and answer some emails. Today was definitely a great day. More will follow I am sure.

Anyways, here are the pics of this day:
http://flickr.com/photos/60805142@N00/sets/72157594192644670/

You can also find my other pictures of the flight day to Japan if look around.