If you are a fan of Japanese beer, then a trip to the Kirin Beer Park in Biwajima just one stop on the JR Chuo Line from Nagoya Station might be for you.



Turn right out of Biwajima Station and a regular free bus will ferry you to the brewery.

The rather long-winded tour (in Japanese) introduces the visitor to the main ingredients of beer, plus the history of beer and the production facilities at the Nagoya brewery, which supplies the whole of the Chubu area.

The highlight of the tour is how to learn to pour a perfect glass of Kirin in three easy stages.

Participating on the tour allows the visitor two free draft Kirin beers. There is also a shop and a restaurant on the premises.


Kirin Beer Park
Kiyosu
452-8562
Tel: 052 408 2000

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白鳥庭園

Shirotomi Garden in Nagoya is close to Atsuta Shrine and the Nagoya Congress Center.



Opened in 1991, the 3.7ha Shirotomi Tei-en is a modern Japanese garden representing the countryside of the surrounding areas of Nagoya city. The mound in the south-west corner of the garden represents Mt. Ondake, located on the borders of Nagano and Gifu Prefectures and  the second highest volcano in Japan at 3,067m. The stream running from the mound represents the Kiso River in Gifu.



The garden contains a traditional teahouse, Seiu-tei, built in the Sukiya style by carpenters from Kyoto. Other features of this beautiful, strolling garden include a perfect, turf lawn, traditional wooden bridges and a number of waterfalls.

There's a cafe for visitors to refresh themselves and contemplate a garden that seems a million miles from the hustle and bustle of downtown Nagoya. Can you spot the toad/frog in the image below?



Shirotomi Garden
Atsuta Nishi-machi 2-5
Atsuta-ku
Nagoya
Tel: 052 681 8928
Admission: 300 yen; Yearly pass 1,200 yen
Hours: 9am-4.30pm; closed Monday and the 3rd Wednesday of the month.
Access: A 10 minute walk from Jingu-Nishi Station on the Meijo Line

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赤池

Akaike Station (lit. "Red Lake") is at the eastern end of the Tsurumai Line of the Nagoya subway before the line becomes the Meitetsu Toyota Line to Toyota city.


The area around the station includes the Oxport sports center and pool, a popular McDonalds, a Piago supermarket, a branch of the Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ bank, a florist, a convenience store, a pachinko parlor and a number of bars, cafes and izakaya.


Akaike Station has full wheelchair access and a free motorbike and bicycle parking lot.

Buses from Akaike no longer run to Chubu International Airport but there are bus services to Toyota, Nagoya Shoka University, Yufukuji and Toyota Nishi High School.


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ナゴヤドーム

Nagoya Dome near Ozone in Nagoya is the home stadium of the Chunichi Dragons baseball team and also plays hosts to music concerts, conferences and trade fairs.

The Rolling Stones played here back in 2006. Other bands to have performed at Nagoya Dome include Aerosmith, Backstreet Boys, Steve Barakatt, Bon Jovi, Celine Dion, Fuel, Billy Joel, Luciano Pavarotti, Queen + Paul Rodgers, and Wayne Shorter.


Nagoya Dome opened in 1997 and has a capacity of around 38,000 people. The dome is opposite a huge Aeon shopping mall and is a popular spot for joggers running around the stadium.



Nagoya Dome is best accessed by subway to the Nagaoya Dome-mae Yada Station on the Meijo line or Ozone Station on the JR, Meitetsu and subway lines.



Nagoya Dome
Tel: 052 719 2121


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BCS ノートブック　ショップ

Brother Computer Solutions in Osu Kannon, Nagoya is a new computer store in the Ameyoko Building 1.

The friendly and committed staff speak English, Spanish, Portuguese and Japanese and buy and sell new and used PCs.


BCS also offers general computer maintenance and repair including hardware cleaning, OS maintenance and upgrades, virus check and removal, upgrades for Windows XP, Windows Vista & Windows 7.

All notebooks have a 3 month guarantee, 1 month free support and online real time support.



BCS Notebook Shop
Brother Computer Solutions
Ameyoko Building 1, 1F
Naka-ku
Osu 3-30-86
Tel: 052 251 6226
osu-ameyoko.co.jp
Map of BCS

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The tallest building in my neighborhood is the O2 (Oh-two) Business Hotel, though the kind of business going on inside this tower is not associated with paperwork, filing and data input.


No O2 is an upmarket love hotel. This six-floor palace even has a large food menu on offer.


In an effort to whip up new custom the hotel is offering an autumn stamp rally drive, the more you come, the more you save!

O2
Nisshin-shi
Akaike Mochiguchi 153
Tel: 052 806 7200

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The Cop 10 conference on biodiversity is being held this month at the Nagoya Congress Center just south of Kanayama Station in Nagoya.



Nagoya Congress Center is close to Atsuta Shrine, Nagoya Gakuin University and the beautiful strolling garden of Shirotori Park.

The nearest stations to the Nagoya Congress Center are Nishi Takakura and Jingu Nishi on the Meijo Line of the Nagoya Subway and Hibino Station on the Meiko Line.

Nagoya Congress Center
1-1 Atsuta-nishimachi
Atsuta-ku
Nagoya
456-0036
Tel: +81 (0)52 683 7711
Fax: +81 (0)52 683 7777
Location of Nagoya Congress Center


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天の湯

Traditional Japanese bath houses or sento usually open around 4pm. If you fancy a soak before then, you will need to search out what is called a "super sento."


Larger and more up-market, drive-in super sento have replaced the smaller, family-run bath houses in places like Nagoya. Only really Kyoto among Japanese cities has a large number of smaller, more intimate sento.

A good example of a super sento is Ten no Yu up the hill to the left from the Ueda subway station on the Tsurumai Line. There is a spacious rotemburo (outside bath) and sun lounge for topping up the tan and Vitamin D level, two saunas, a massage parlor and jacuzzi.


An early morning soak and sauna is a great way to shake off any hangover and leave you feeling much happier about life.

Ten no Yu
Tenpaku-ku, Ueda 1-703
Tel: 052 807 1123
Admission 700 yen
Map of Ten no Yu

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マナカ

Nagoya is to launch the Manaca IC card for use on the city area's trains, buses, taxis and subways.

Similar to the Pasmo and Suica cards in use in Tokyo, the contactless IC transit card will first be valid on Nagoya's subway, bus network, Aonami Line and local Meitetsu trains and buses.


The pre-paid card will also be valid on Meitetsu taxis some time after its release on the public transportation system in Nagoya city in February 2011.




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名古屋農業センター

Nagoya Agricultural Center is a large city-operated public gardens in the east of the city.

The gardens are especially known for their plum blossoms in March.

It's free to get in, there's a cafe/restaurant, a shop selling often organic vegetables as well as plants and health foods, glass houses, a bamboo forest, streams and even a model farm with battery chickens, pigs, sheep, goats and cows.



The nearest station is Hirabari on the Tsurumai Line - head east from the station on the road to Toyota. The Nagoya Agricultural Center is about 15 minutes on foot on your right.



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名古屋

Temperatures continue to be very high throughout Japan. I recorded a temperature of 50.5 degrees Centigrade outside my house today.


Forecasts are for the area of high pressure over the Japanese archipelago to continue to bring searing heat for the next week.


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相撲名古屋場所

The troubled sport of sumo lurches from one crisis to the next ahead of the opening of the annual Nagoya tournament this Sunday.

Rocked by revelations of betting scandals and connections with Japan's underworld, the sport is seeking to restore its tarnished reputation beginning with this weekend's basho.

Champion wrester Kotomitsuki and stablemaster Otake have both been fired from the over 1,300 year-old-sport and 18 other wrestlers have been suspended from the upcoming tournament by the Japan Sumo Association (JSA).

Sumo was already a sport in serious decline before the latest scandals broke: allegations of drug use, the hazing death of a young trainee and nagging accusations of bout-rigging that refuse to go away.

The sport is no longer popular with Japan's youth and the best wrestlers now come from Mongolia, including the Yokozuna Hakuho and the now disgraced Asashoryu.

The public's patience with Japan's national sport was finally snapped by the revelations that 50 gangsters from the Yamaguchi-gumi, Japan's largest crime syndicate, had obtained front row seats at last year's Nagoya tournament. The plan was to be seen on national television and thus offer support to senior Yakuza members locked up in Japan's prisons.

When national broadcaster NHK threatened to pull the plug on live broadcasts the hide-bound JSA finally had to act to try and clean out the Augean stables. However NHK has made good on its threat and will not show the Nagoya tournament live for the first time in 50 years, opting for a delayed and abbreviated highlights show each day instead, after receiving 1000s of complaints from its viewers.



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田県神社の豊年祭,　犬山、愛知県

The 2010 Tagata Jinja Fertility Festival takes places on March 15 and is one of Japan's most celebrated "Phallic Festivals". Fifteen years ago there were a few hundred bemused spectators watching the procession and the whole event was very much a subdued local affair.





Nowadays a vast, boisterous crowd of both Japanese and foreign visitors watch the 2.5m, newly-carved 300kg wooden phallus being carried on a mikoshi (portable shrine), by teams of 12 men, the 1.5km between Kumano Shrine and Tagata Shrine near Inuyama, just outside Nagoya.

The procession reaches Tagata Shrine about 4pm for the literal climax of the day's events. A small portable shrine carries a wooden representation of Takeinadene-no-mikoto, the male deity visiting his female counterpart (and wife) Tamahime-no-mikoto, who is enshrined at Tagata Jinja. Next comes the huge phallus which is placed in the shrine for another year, the old phallus being sold off.

Access

To get to Tagata Jinja take a Meitetsu train from Nagoya Station or Kanayama Station to Inuyama. Change to a Meitetsu Komaki Line train leaving from platform 3 and go threee stops to Tagata Jinja Mae. Turn left out of the station and then left again at the main road. Tagata Jinja is about 400m on your right. To reach Kumano Shrine turn right out of Tagata Jinja, cross over the main road and Kumano Jinja is on your left as you climb the hill after crossing over the railway line.
Alternatively take the Tsurumai Subway Line to Kami Otai and change to a Meitetsu Line train to Inuyama and then the Komaki Line to Tagata Jinja Mae.

Ogata Shrine (Tel: 0568 67 1017) is a ten minute walk, turning right out of Gakuden Station on the Meitetsu Komaki Line.

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ペルーの音楽

A Peruvian combo dressed in ponchos and displaying some nifty footwork are a fixture at Kanayama Station in Nagoya on weekends. This performance was cut short by the arrival of the Japanese police with one young clip-board toting officer, politely tapping his feet to the beat and waiting for a break in the music before moving in to have a quiet word.


We left at this stage but when we returned about 5 hours later the guys were still going strong. I will try to find out exactly what the law is regarding buskers in Japan. If you know, please leave a comment below.


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関ヶ原

The Battle of Sekigahara in 1600 is probably the most decisive battle fought in Japanese history, comparable to other great civil war battles such as the Battle of Marston Moor in England in 1644 and Gettysburg in the US in 1863.


The massive battle fought on the narrow plains beneath the high Ibuki mountains in Gifu Prefecture in central Japan, paved the way for Tokugawa Ieyasu to establish the Tokugawa shogunate that would control Japan and shape the country until the 1860s.

The Battle of Sekigahara was the culmination of a decades-long struggle to unify Japan under one ruling dynasty begun with the campaigns of Oda Nobunaga, continued by his general Toyotomi Hideyoshi and completed by the scheming and military genius of the Tokugawa clan.



After the death of Hideyoshi at age 63 in 1598, Japan was plunged into political uncertainty as Hideyoshi's heir, Hideyori, was but a child of 6 years of age at the time of his father's demise. Hideyoshi had wrung a death bed promise from his allies to keep the peace until his son was old enough to assume power, but divisions soon appeared among the leading strongmen in the interim Council of Regency.

The inevitable conflict between the competing forces for power came between the Western armies, lead by Ishida Mitsunari, who supported the settlement arranged by Hideyoshi and the Eastern armies lead by Tokugawa Ieyasu, who was determined to take ultimate power himself and destroy Hideyoshi's legacy.


Both sides deployed about 80,000 men at the battle, which took place on October 21, 1600. Lasting most of the day, the engagement was immensely bloody with an estimated 30-40,000 casualties altogether sustained in the fighting. Ieyasu was victorious, mainly due to the treachery of the young daimyo Kobayakawa Hideaki, who changed sides during the course of the battle and attacked Ishida Mitsunari's forces, as had been agreed beforehand with Ieyasu. Other generals on the Western side, like Hiroie Kikkawa, also failed to fully commit their forces to the fray.

Ishida fled the battlefield as defeat was imminent but was hunted down and executed on the banks of the Kamo River in Kyoto along with his supporters Konishi Yukinaga and the daimyo monk Ekei Ankokuji.



Nowadays Sekigahara is a sleepy village just west of the castle town of Ogaki. There are a number of walking courses to take in the various positions occupied by the opposing armies and a couple of museums worth visiting - the excellent Sekigahara Town History & Folklore Museum (Tel: 0584 43 2665), with Jimbano - the site of Ieyasu's last camp just across the road and the rather faded Sekigahara War Land (Tel: 0584 43 0302) just off National Highway 365 to the north west of the Sekigahara Town History & Folklore Museum.

Sekigahara is an easy day trip from Nagoya. Take a JR Kaisoku (rapid) train bound for Maibara from Nagoya Station or change to a local train at Ogaki. The Sekigahara Tourist Office is outside the station (Tel: 0584 43 5559) and opens from 9am-2pm April to November.



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物件張り紙

If you are looking for an apartment in Japan, a good place to start looking is the windows of real estate agents.

The windows are covered with bukken-harigami - cards with information on available apartments to rent.



Information included on the cards usually includes the distance from the nearest subway station or bus stop on foot, the rent, the size of the apartment or house and the facilities included.



Thus the apartment below on the left is 23 minutes on foot from Shiogamaguchi subway station in Nagoya, its a 1K apartment (one room and a kitchen), the rent is 42,000 yen, with a further charge of 3,000 to cover the shared cost of the elevator and cleaning of the apartment block (共益費; kyoekihi) and its facilities include cable tv, an aircon, veranda and shower.



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名古屋傘


Each year in Japan about 120,000 million plastic umbrellas are disposed of. In an effort to recycle some of that number, Nagoya has a scheme where you can pick up a plastic umbrella from a stand (below) and return it to a similar stand when you have finished with it.



The scheme began in June 2008 just before the annual rainy reason in Japan. The scheme operates around Meieki (Nagoya Station), Kanayama Station, Sakae, Shin Sakae, Imaike and Osu Kannon. A major promotor of the scheme is Nagoya city transport authority, who no doubt have to deal with 1000s of abandoned clear plastic umbrellas.

nagoyakasa.com

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名古屋女

On a cold early December evening, we noticed a young woman waiting for a friend just outside Kanayama Station, Nagoya.

We were waiting for someone, too, and were struck by her light red skirt, black tights and top, and white bag with pink highlights.

The station area is fairly banal: aside from the Boston Museum on the other side, it is the usual mishmash of fast food, banks, telephone wires, and pachinko.

There is a small outdoor mall just behind where the woman is standing.

A view of the mall and beyond - with the requisite love hotel and English school - can be seen below.

Not sure which (if either) of these she was headed to.

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Chukyo University in Nagoya may not be in the Ivy League of Japanese universities but it certainly excels in women's figure skating.



Two of Japan's best figure skaters, Mao Asada and Miki Ando, both attend Chukyo.

The modern campus building towers above the crossroads at Yagoto in the south east of the city and the university has its own entrance from the Yagoto subway on the Meijo Line.

There are two large ice rinks open to the public in Nagoya: Nippon Gaishi Arena - a five minute walk from JR Kasadera Station on the JR Tokaido Line, two stops from Kanayama Station and The Nagoya Sports Center Rink at Osu Kannon, a three minute walk from Exit 2 of Osu Kannon Subway Station on the Tsurumai Line.

There is another rink in Toyota city at Aichi Youth Park not far from Chukyo's Toyota campus.

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歩道のイカ

I have seen some odd things dumped on the sidewalks in Japan, especially when city authorities would pick up sodai gomi (large items of household waste) on specific days for free.



This much-loved practice, which provided the furniture for many a short-term foreigner's apartment and offered up the odd priceless antique, has now come to a sad end and you must contact your local ward office and pay for them to collect any bulky refuse.

As this type of free refuse collection has become a paid-for service, some people now drive out to a quiet, usually scenic area, and fly dump their stuff to save a shekel or two.



Just near my house, adjacent to Nagoya Agricultural Center is a wooded hill kept as a conservation area by Nagoya city. It was here I saw a giant cuttlefish half stuffed into a plastic bag hanging over the storm drain at the side of the road. Bizarre! The decomposing cephalopod was covered in flies and already beginning to stink on this warm and sunny day. I'll return in a week or so to see what state (of decomposition) the thing is in by then.

Phone the toll-free number 0120-758-530 Monday-Friday 9am-5pm if you have a large dead marine creature to offload in Nagoya. Human cremation is free and one of the perks of living (and dying) in Nagoya.

Items such as bicycles, furniture and kerosene stoves cost 500 yen. Carpets, futons and small electrical items such as vacuum cleaners and CD players cost 250 yen.

Nagoya city does not collect air conditioners, TVs, refrigerators, or washing machines which should be recycled under the Law for Recycling Specific Kinds of Home Appliances enacted in 1998).

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