Later on in the day, there was a field trip to two locations - The Tokugawa Art Museum and Nagoya Castle. Conveniently, Nagoya does an all-day travel pass for 600 yen (comparatively cheap) on weekends, holidays and the eighth of each month. Why the eighth? The best explanation I can come up with is that the city's symbol is the kanji for eight (八). Unfortunately photography was rather restricted inside these places, but I shall endeavour to describe them.
The Art Museum did what it said on the tin - it contained artifacts of everyday life of long ago, but with a focus on the extravagant and good-looking. For big social symbols there was armour, swords, palanquins and the like, all looking very sturdy, - beautiful but built to last! There were also painted screens, illustrated scrolls and other such things to do with writing and painting. And there was a replica tea house and Noh theatre stage and costumes, that was cool, evoked a better sense of closeness to the objects and the lifestyle of people who may have used them.
Nagoya Castle was a good location - it feels like quite some time since I last visited a castle, and in many ways it reminded me of the ones I've visited in England - it being a large fortified structure and all. But in many other respects it was refreshingly different. Architecturally, of course, the design was quite different, in the oriental style with golden "dolphins" on the roof. I put that in quotations as that's what some of the translations called it, but it looked like no dolphin I've ever seen, with big teeth and moustaches. But they were apparently another important symbol of the city back in the day, so they featured quite heavily.
Inside the castle there were several floors, with a long winding staircase going up (and another going down, and one in the middle just for show). There was information all about the history of Nagoya (luckily this was printed in Japanese and English); the bit I liked best was a mock-up of a medieval street, with reconstructed shop fronts and changing light and sound effects to simulate passage of time. On the top floor there was a great view of the city - at first it seems to stretch on and on as far as the eye can see, but then one catches a glimpse of mountains in the background, which is somehow reassuring.
Those were my adventures and thoughts for today. It's strange, sooo many of the English speakers here are American, it makes me feel a little bit out of place and fills me with longing for my home and its customs and accents ... Well, maybe not all of them.
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| Nagoya Castle |
