Nagoya. Japan

Monday Evening

Saturday

Let's update, I am now in Nagoya, Japan. After flying our of Beijing on Saturday afternoon ee arrived on Saturday night and simply went to the hotel to catch up on some much needed sleep.

Sunday

Our first stop in Nagoya, Japan was the Nagoya Castle. The Castle was quite beautiful. It had to be rebuilt after it was destroyed in bombings during World War II. In addition to the normal sites of the castle there was also a Chysanthemum display which was suprisingly impressive. On top of the castle are two golden tiger-headed dolphins, called kinshachi. They have a replica in the castle museum which I of course climbed onto and got a photo of. (this is not only allowed but encouraged). One of the other items of the Nagoya Castle is the uniform of a Shogun Warrior of the Tokagawa Shogunate. I read someone that uniform was the inspiration for the person who designed the look for Darth Vader of Star Wars fame.

We then proceed to the Meiji Muri which is an open-air architectural museum/theme park in Inuyama, near Nagoya in Aichi prefecture, Japan. The museum space was quite serene.

As of this writing the attractions in Japan are MUCH less crowded than China. We ate our first traditional Japanese meal from a Bento Box (LINK). It was so tasty.

A Bento Box lunch

We happened past a wedding photo in process

Some of the highlights of the museum were a reproduction of a Frank Llyod Wright designed building, a mineral water foot bath, and the Awa Odori dance (LINK) . In the first video you can see how the dance is supposed to go. In the next video you can see me and my roommate, jump into the dance "conga" line. Well they selected four people from the crowd who performed the dance well and you guessed it we were two of them. As a present for our dancing skills we recieved a doll doing the Awa Odori Dance. After we asked the name of the dance, we did not know it at the time of dancing, we found out the Awa Odori dance was appropriately named the "dance of fools". For the rest of the time we were at the museum Japanese people were coming up and congratulating me for my dancing skills.

The Awa Odori dance (The Dance of Fools) - the right way

Mr. Steph doing the Awa Odori Dance (The Dance of Fools)

Getting my dancing award

After we returned to the hotel we had a planning meeting for our school visit on Monday. We broke into teams and prepared what we going to do and who was going to do it. I can't wait to visit the school. I have heard so much about the excellence of Japanese school and I look forward to meeting the teachers and students.

After the meeting a few of us explored the city of Nagoya by using its subway system. Nagoya is about the size of Atlanta and is the 5th largest city in Japan. The city is quite comsopolitan and there is shopping EVERYWHERE. The young people, both women and men, dress quite stylish. Fashion has a huge significance to the young people of Japan.

More photos of the day