Nagoya Castle

Nagoya sucks. Guide books even say this but only with more words. It is the 4th biggest city in Japan and headquarters to many big Japanese companies. Nagoya castle seems like its the big tourist draw and is Nagoya's mascot. Me and bob were gonna go when we were there but it didnt happen. I finally go to check it out. small jinja near shiba koen. why are there different color daruma dolls here? snub-nosed Azusa train in shinjuku. don't know where this goes. I thought this woman's kimono in Nagoya station was stunning. One cool thing about Nagoya and probably anywhere besides tokyo is that there are a LOT more people wearing Kimonos/Yukata. One of many Nagoya castle advertisements. I really did see all these guys there. I kind of feel like once you've seen one Japanese castle you've seen them all. But i've only been to Osaka castle and Nagoya castle so I can't say on authority. Anyway these two are basically the same so if you've seen one you don't need to see the other. what are these people waiting for with helmets on for? why to ride this platform thing of course Japan loves mascots. they even have a mascot for Nagoya castle which is the castle. Japan also loves hard hats. You have to wear a hard hat to go inside this special exhibition area that was showing tiger art or something. lame HDR photo i made. the tell tale sign is those extreme clouds. part of my argument that you're not supposed to step on that door divider thing when you enter places in Asia. I've asked friends the official cultural policy but never really got an answer. There are 2 gold plated dolphins on the top of Nagoya castle. They're this big, one male and one female. grossly fat white tiger art. awesome golden dolphin samurai kabuto. This is also an HDR photo but a little more subtle. I love these japanese family crests, they even make books with these inside and i have 2 of them. Anyway some 50 something caucasian dude was loving this box even more than me because its for holding gold coins. they had a long display of various bonsais. this one is amazing. its seriously like a mini forest. unreal. HDR photo. HDR close up of amazing mini forest bonsai. the rest of the fam was sleeping in the shadows. this is in the moat around the castle. Tengui mask. half man half raven mythological character. that forehead hat thing is worn by some sect of some japanese religion of hermits in the mountains. I saw a bunch of girls over the course of 2 days in the Nagoya area sporting these faux animal tails. Don't you A-holes know that an animal had to die for those? god. would this fly in new york? having big bushy animal tails swinging from your bags? they had some kind of matsuri going on, i didn't want to wait around for it to happen but there were a bunch of teams of guys pushing these huge heavy things around getting ready for it. the best food i've had in Japan is always at Fumika's house. these are some kind of radish. these are some kind of pork, chicken, beef, spinach, mixed curry fried magical triangles. awesome. sesame oil spinach, simmered sweet kabocha Fumika's mom is an elementary school teacher. it was her birthday recently. this is a letter written by one of her students. amongst other things its says sorry this letter is 1 day late, so i am giving you this seal (pictured at right). she want's fumika's mom to give him a name. super cuteness.