Tripping in Nagoya
...written on 2001-01-05, @ 23:43:43
Tales of Kim's Life in Japan
Fri January 5, 2001
Let me set the scene. It's cold out. Little snow flakes are wending their way down to the ground, disappearing as they strike it. I'm in a warm futon. It is 10 am. I'm on vacation. It's cold out. Ivan and I were supposed to get an early start to Nagoya today to get a multiple entry visa for our passports. I wanted to leave by 10am. I'm in a warm futon. I'm on vacation. It's cold out.
I called Ivan and he said he had a couple of more layers to put on and that he would be right over. It's cold out, you see. So, almost an hour later, I hear Ivan knocking on my door. He's shaking and cursing because it's cold out. He doesn't take off his shoes, but rather snakes his head around the closet/cabinet and says "Good morning." I answered him in kind and asked him if he had everything, he said 'yes', I asked him if he had his passport and he said 'no', but that's Ivan, always joking you know, so I smiled back and said 'right'. He repeated the word 'no' and added a 'do you think we'll need it?' I told him 'yes, that's where they stamp the visa'. He cursed some more and turned around to bicycle back home and get his passport.
When Ivan returned we took the train from Ogaki to Nagoya. We had lunch at an Italian restaurant and shared a calzone and an order of garlic bread. We went back to the train station and inquired at the info booth where City Hall was. After getting the directions we boarded the subway and got off at City Hall. I'm leaving out all of Ivan's comments about his sense of direction as well as his reluctance to ask people where things were (American MEN and their innate sense of direction!). Suffice it to say, we made it to Immigration, where there was a TON of people and we thought we'd have to wait for a long time, but we were lucky and were out of there in less than 20 minutes.
Now it was time to play and the cold rain didn't bother us. We were on a mission to have fun by golly! First stop, the mother of all Japanese bookstores, Maruzen. This store has about 7 stories full of books. The foreign section (books in English) is a small part of the 4th floor and that's where we spent the bulk of our time. Ivan scoped out the Sports magazines (one issue of Golf Digest is $18) and fiction (small paperbacks are $15) and I shopped the Japanese grammar and cooking books, the English language teaching supplies and the Japanese trivia section. I bought one grammar book, one trivia book and two cook books. Yeehaa! It was fun.
After the bookstore, we tried to find the Sizzler restaurant. We asked a man tending the line at the bus stop and a woman waiting for the bus also helpfully chimed in. Ivan and I understood maybe one or two words and their hand signals, so we walked until we felt we needed new directions and asked someone else. We caught this one fellow as he finished running across the street, cell phone to his ear. He was cute! He stopped and looked up one street and down the other and finally said "Chotto matte" and disappeared into this club. I told Ivan that the fellow must have needed a drink before he could finish the directions. We waited and waited and were tempted to leave, but our good samaritan finally came out of the club and gave us the next third of the clues to our destination. We finally made it to Sizzler and attacked the salad bar. After dinner we wanted to do some more shopping and asked our way to "Loft".
On our way there, we saw lots of people and lots of traffic. We were in the middle of being amused at some Japanese women's choice of footwear (boots and sneakers with 6-8 inch platforms), when a woman went running by us. I thought I heard something drop and then saw that she had lost a package of flowers. Ivan grabbed them and ran after her and returned them to her.
We stopped in one store before we got to "Loft". I must confess, I don't understand where the Japanese get their money. I saw an apron for $220! I saw a little lamp for $550! We saw a wooden Mickey Mouse desk for $1600. Of course, most of this stuff was brand name from either Italy, France or Disneyworld, but still!
We made it to "Loft" which is a HUGE store devoted mostly to home decorating items. Was I ever in heaven! The prices were pretty reasonable too. Ivan showed me where the lamps were and I went gaga. Unfortunately, they closed at 8pm, so we only had 45 minutes to run around and play there.
It was a successful and fun outing. Thanks to Ivan (who'd been to Nagoya twice before) and the aid of many helpful Japanese, we made all of our subway and train connections, completed our errand and had a wonderful shopping experience.