One of those things at work that I’m really grateful for is the opportunity to travel, and particularly to Japan, as it’s where an annual tech teaching and learning conference I’m involved in is routinely hosted. The conference has been held recently in the cities of Tokuyama and Matsue. When time permits too, I also try to take a few days for a personal extension to do a bit of traveling in the area each visit too. For this year, it’s hosted at Toyota City, about an hour away by train east of Nagoya.
I was recently in Nagoya in Dec 2022 during our family vacation, and where we spent two days visiting the most important sights within the city area. The big difference of course though is that our December 2022 family trip was in winter: cold, but still infinitely more comfortable than the very humid and warm weather I’ve experienced this several days this September in Nagoya! From a temperature point of view, the thermometer reading in Nagoya of 32-34 degree celsius doesn’t read any higher than any any day in September in Singapore: but the skies over this first weekend I was in Nagoya were largely cloudless, and there was a relatively lack of breezes and wind. The net result of these factors made walking about outside in in the city not particularly pleasant. It took just a minute or two of walking in the day time for me to start perspiring! It got warm from a 9AM mid-morning onwards, and the humidity continued till also into the early evening.
We didn’t do day trips out of Nagoya in December that year, since by that point, it was already the tail end of our 15 day vacation then and we’d already done a fair bit of traveling in the cities of Kyoto, Osaka, Himeji, Nara, Kanazawa, Fukui, Toyama, and Takayama. The trip this time I was determined to do day trips out of Nagoya, and decided on three: one to Magome and Tsumago-jukus, a second to Kamikochi, and a third to Gujo Hachiman/Hida Takayama/Shirakawa-Go. I’ve finished the first day trip, and notes will come next week on the next two trips.
Unlike also that December 2022 trip where our plane in the outbound leg suffered a technical fault that required a return to the boarding gate, my journey from Singapore to Nagoya – via SQ672 – was uneventful. Well, aside from that I didn’t get any sleep, immigration and baggage clearance was super quick, particularly with the assistance of the pre-arrival registration via Visit Japan web. It took just 22 minutes from when I deplane-ed at 9:05AM to getting luggage at the carousell. After that, it was a a short 5 minute walk from arrivals to the central plaza that interconnects Terminals 1 and 2 of Chubu-Centrair International Airport, then finding the booth where I can buy a ticket for the transfer from airport to Nagoya Station. At 10:25AM – just 1 hr 25 minutes after landing – I’d arrived at Meitetsu-Nagoya Station, and dropped of luggage at the my first place of stay: the Via Inn Nagoya Ekimae Tsubakicho.
This trip, I’ll be staying in properties on the western side of Nagoya Station, and the area feels quite bit quieter than the east side. Aside from the Esca Underground Shopping Mall – the basement strip mall nearest to the two hotels – the general Nagoya Station looked as busy as ever over this first weekend. I was able to check out a few of the spots we visited during our 2022 trip: including the Ippudo Ramen restaurant at the small Ramen alley inside Nagoya Station, and also the Cheese Restaurant at Unimall on the east side of the Station.
On Day 03 – this morning – it was time to leave Nagoya (I’ll be back on this week Friday afternoon!) and to make my way to Toyota City. The journey was pretty easy: from Nagoya station, catch a train along the Higashiyama Line to Fushimi Station, then another train along the Tsurumai Line to Toyotashi Station. The route has several train timings, including one that requires a change of train at Akaike Station. I opted to wait for the more express train that doesn’t require me to train trains, and in an hour, I’d arrived at Toyota City.
More notes on my stay in Toyota City to come soon!