Nagoya

Our view from the Westin was Nagoya Castle. It was breathtaking all lit in the evening. We took a few pictures, but they may be blurry because of the dark environment and/or the window. I'm keeping my fingers crossed, though.

We awoke the next morning, had breakfast at the included buffet, checked out (leaving our luggage for now) and set out for the castle. We started the wrong way and realized that the grounds were quite large and this was more castle than we had been in before. We turned around and eventually made it to the entrance.

The grounds were ... impressive. There were many buildings and gardens and open fields. It was far more expansive than Shimabara Castle, even though there is quite a bit at Shimabara. Their focus was on these Golden Dolphins that adorned the roof. There were replicas and models everywhere for you to take your picture with. We never quite figured out what the whole deal was, but apparently they are hard to keep track of - burned down with the building, stolen before the unveiling, etc. I think they may be viewed as something to do with fertility. Nevertheless, revered they are. We walked around the grounds, looked in a few of the buildings, and left.

We hit the subways and used them to get around for the rest of the day. We got pretty good at going through them. I'm sure it will make our experience in Tokyo more enjoyable. One thing that impressed me...they are obviously pretty old, but so much cleaner than anything I've ridden in the US. There weren't stains or strange smells, just visual wear and tear. Drastically different mentality.

We journeyed to Hard Rock and had lunch, collecting more shirts for each of us. We've decided to likely continue this trend throughout Japan. It's fun and something (not so) novel for us. They gave Roo a cute little bear with her lunch and she's very attached to him.

After that, we wandered for a bit. Chrys and Owl found the Apple store while I walked to a Noritake store. None of us found anything and we all ended up back at the Apple store to gawk at the new stuff. Noritake has a series of dishes themed around My Neighbor Totoro that are cute, though.

We went back to Nagoya station and walked to the Noritake Gardens (their headquarters). Most of the buildings there were closed by 5pm so I didn't get to paint my own Noritake, but the gardens were beautiful and cruising through the outlet was fun, even if I didn't stop to buy anything. It's quite a complex they have.

After that, it was back to the train, to the airport, to home and some eagerly awaited beds.