A rainy, but soooo hospitable and delicious Nagoya!

Three days Kyoto flew by and we had to decide upon our next moves... We were lucky to get in touch with Aki, a friend of our friends Arnoud and Franneke. Now living in Nagoya, Aki and his wife Aska have taken care of us as if we were part of their family!! We had a wonderful time, with good food, fun and sleep! 

 

It was a really early start to get the bus from Kyoto station. After realizing that our laundry was still on the rooftop (which is closed after 9 pm) and waking up the nightwatch of the hostel (sorry!) we managed to get all our stuff and walk up to Kyoto station. 3 hours later (traffic all over!) we reached Nagoya. A hardworking industrial city (3. biggest in Japan) of 2,25 million inhabitants, most famous for its proximity to Toyota-town and the beautiful, restored castle that we managed to see on a picture :D (it poured all day!). But also home of  two super warm and friendly Japanese people! So a damn good reason to go there! Nagoya for us was more about getting to know Aki and Aska, and experience a bit of Japanese culture and cuisine, than about seeing the sights, so don't wonder why there are no temples to be seen when you look at the pictures :)

 

Our friends waited for us at the station with a rented car for the day!!!, with their two cute little dogs Kushan and Aqua and we drove a little further towards the Gifu discrict. We visited a market together, trying all the food we've never seen or had before! Little dried mini-fish (or shrimps?), different sour/pickled vegetables, Green tea sweets, sweet bean pancakes,...., it was heaven. We simply love local markets, as this is where the locals go, where "real" people are to be met. And as in many places in Japan, there are a lot of shrines, to be found in unexpected places, such as in the middle of a shopping street. The "gate" marks the holy ground of the Gods and Shinto beliefs have many Gods (the water, fire, sun, trees, etc.), the shrine we visited being dedicated to the Fox. Purifying your hands and face is a must, and a 5 Yen coin brings luck to your prayer (the word 5 in Japanese sounds like luck). Japanese culture has a lot of traditions, rules of politeness and etiquette. It's hard to remember all!  We also got our share of nature when we walked up to a beautiful waterfall! It was a perfect day.

 

The food we had together and were invited to!!!! was a feast! (gochisō-sama deshita!) they introduced us to "Udon" (thick white wheat noodles), cooked real Japanese breakfast for us with Rice and Natto (fermented SoyBeans) and invited us to try "Okonomiyaki" (japanese pizza) at a Teppan-restaurant (sitting around a hot iron plate and making your food yourself). It was amazing!!! As pictures say more then words, check it out in the Nagoya-album! ;) namnam, yumyum :))) we like.... of course on the second day got us some bread (yes we found it!!:), strawberry yoghurt, yakult, fried Kumara (sweet potato) sushi, which we really enjoyed with squid, octopus, salmon, mackerel, egg, salmon eggs,...... GEILL!

 

We have been told and can imagine it is really hard to get into Japanese culture without someone to introduce you to it. As we said before, Japanese are quite shy, even somewhat reserved, but we were welcomed as long known friends, felt home and even talked about their experiences of the Tsunami and Fukushima!! So we are more than grateful that we had the chance to see/experience/taste/feel more and being welcomed in this fascinating country! Thank you!!!

 

ARIGATO GOZAIMASU!