On July 15th, Andreas and I took a short trip to Inuyama. It took 1.5 hours from Nagoya station by train.

I found nice website from Inuyama. Website and Wikipedia!

After we got out from the train, some old houses were remaining from Edo period.

  @Inuyama station

  Old style of house

We also visited a couple of museums. Inuyama has a big festival with using a traditional hand cart. The cart was amazingly big , but some times I would like to see the festival in Inuyama

 Festival cart. So huge, compared with me

Then, we visited to Inuyama castle.

 @ the entrance of Shrine 

This castle was built in 14 century. so inside was very tiny and dark. Everything was made by wood. When we went to the top of castle, there was a tiny passage that you can walk around the top of castle. Since it was a bit windy, I was scared with walking on that passage. BUT the view was very beautiful

  

  Samurai ghost and historical stuff

  Little wooden Inuyama castle and me

    From the top

The last activity in Inuyama was taking a boat tour on Kiyo river. This river is supposed to be similar with the Rhine river in Germany. The flow of water is always rapid and the rock formations are called the Nihon Rhine after Rhine river. It was true that the water flow was so rapid and I got a thrill We got wet, but it was very fun activity. There was a Cat Rock, Rat Rock, and Turtle Rock

 This sign says that Japaese version of Rhine River cruise

 He was our guide and decision maker of direction.

  the volume of water was hight because of Typhoon…

  We were on the boat hihihi

After this, we went back to Nagoya and took a night bus to Tokyo!

This short trip was worth going, even the typhoon was coming.

On July 15th,  we took a short trip to Ise Jingu.(Wikipedia) It took to get there for 2 hourse by train.

My mother also joined us to go Ise Jingu

 My favorite snack ” Pocky(Green tea)” 

I needed some snacks for 2 hours train.

 Andreas also likes Pocky!!

   

We had to transfer one time.

 Finally, Ise station

This Ise Jingu is the most important Shrine in Japan. Many people think our religion is Buddhism, but it is not true. Most of us are Shinto. Shinto believes in a natural God. For example, if a farmer wanted some rain for the plantation or rice field. They prayed for the Water God and something like that.

According to the Japanese legend, the origin of that God was a woman and most important.  Well, I’ve never been to this shrine, so it was good time to go there and to see how the place is look like.

  Family pic and Andreas

Also there is a fun place next to this place And good foods as well,hihihi Nice foods always make me Happy~~ The place is called Okage Yokocho! Unfortunately, I could not find the English page…kuso

First stop was called ” Gaigu” The mail place was for Foods God (rice, grain and so on). Also there was a place for ground, moon, and wind God. We visited to all of the places. Well, I did not realized that there was each different places for God before Andreas asked me, Oops… I learned about it from him. He had more knowledge than I did.

 Map of Gegu

 A gateway at the entrance to a Shinto Shrine

  

 Wind God

  

Then, we took a taxi to go to the next place ” Naigu”

BUT  we all smelled good right after we got out from the taxi. Of course, we got distracted with some sweets,hihihi. There was a famous sweet shop and had a green tea ice like this—>

 ” Akahuku Honten”

   

Andreas and I shared It was so fast to finish eating up

Finally, we started to walk to the inside! The weather was really good, because the typhoon just left. It was so sunny, but not humid.

  on the bridge

There was an important God at this place (Amaterasu Oomikami). But the place was quite similar with the previous one. So we just walked around and decided to go to the fun place!

  Bonsai garden

 a little stream

  

so many steps…on the top, it was an important place

  The roor is using with typical style

  at the pond

 I made a video again.

The fun place was very traditional street from 17-18century. It  looks like an amusement park. Also always the countryside has better foods than Tokyo.

   

Yoshizawa Beef is a famous brand in Japan. We tasted it with beef, and it was so tasty.

  

And our late lunch was Ise Udon

   

   

  In this square, Sake sometimes stores.

I bought so many foods to bring to Finland,hehehe. From that place, the seafoods and green teas were famous! ::I planed to bring foods with me and put them in my suitcase as much as possible ::

The bad thing was that the shops were closed around 5:30pm, so we decided to go back to our hotel.

Our first stop was Nagoya castle on July 14th. That day, a big typhoon was coming to Nagoya area There was heavy rain from the morning…

We were already there, so just went to see Nagoya castle. Even though it was rainning, there were some people inside. The castle was rebuilt because of the war damage. Now they are trying to rebuild Honmaru. More infomation is HERE. My first time to visit here was when I was 6 years old. I came with my grandparents.

Starting our trip

 @Nagoya station

 Hihihi, Andreas was sleepying in the train

 There were deers!

  These are surveillance gates.

  we needed an umbrella

Let’s go through the gate!

 Main part of castle

   memorial photos

 New building will be there like this->

 Andreas found to play with–>

This gold dolphinlike fish is a symbol( A pair of which were traditionally used to decorate the roof-ridge of a Japanese castle).

More exhibitions were inside.

  

There three top guys are most famous Samurai during Azuchi-Momoyama period 

 So Sad…the castle was burnt in 1945. My grandmother was living around Nagoya area. She still remembers how the castle was before. We almost lost all of the historical building around that time. I felt the same feeling when I was in Warsaw.

  The pics said that how the people rebuilt this castle.

 

  The old style of Japanese rooms

  No chairs no the westen style of doors

We played at a demo that showed the difficulty of pulling stones to build the castle’s Walls.  The stones were big and heavy. Here is the video we tried, hehehe.

On July 13th, we started to travel to Nagoya at night.

Nagoya is located on southwest of Tokyo. It takes 1.5 hours by Shinkansen, which is the fastest train in Japan. Hoever, we took a night bus to save our money. Of course, it was uncomfortable and took us 7 hours get there… Remember if you are traveling from abroad, you can get the discount for JR Railpass…more information

But before going there, I met a friend which I have known ever since we were small children.

The meeting time was around noon, so we walked to Daikanyama and went an Italian restaurant to have a lunch

Her kid, Hikaru, grew up quite much since last year, wow. Now he was able to understand our conversation!

 Hello

 Wanna play with An-tan—-> Yay yay,Peace

Our lunch was Spaghetti alla Carbonara, Carpaccio , and Chocolate cake 

 One of the dishes, Carpaccio!

It was good atmosphere in the restaurant and we had a good time with my friend! The Typhoon was coming that day, so we went back to my home and kept chatting with my friend I was so happy to speak in my native language so I don’t remember how many hours we talked and laughed, hahaha. Then, baby Hikaru got sleepy  We promised to meet again before going to back to Finland.

 Dear Marie-chan, thank you for visiting us

Around 9pm, it was time to go to the station for the night bus. Andreas, my sister and I took this horrible night bus. My parents also needed to go to Nagoya next day for the wedding, but they took a fastest train….Our horrible night was beginning, hehehe.

Next day, we arrived in Nagoya station at 6am. It was heavy raining because of a big Typhoon was coming 

It was still too early to go sightseeing, so we decided to take a nap at MacDonald. We took a breakfast and had some sleep, hihihi.

 Morning menu

 Good morning, Ohayou gozaimasu

Let’s go to the next diary for the first day of Nagoya