Rain rain rain

I woke up here on my last full day in Nagoya this morning, and it was raining again! Argh.

In fact, today provided even more problems. Not only was it raining, but it was a national holiday of some sort, which meant everyone wanted to go somewhere. There aren't many indoor attractions in Nagoya, so whatever you choose, it's going to be packed.

I chose to take a look at the Port Of Nagoya area. Yes, it was packed.

The port area has been redeveloped in recent years (apparently) to draw in the tourists. Attractions here include an aquarium, an observation deck, a maritime museum, an Antarctic museum (on board the Fuji, an Antarctic exploration vessel permanently docked at the port) and, somewhat bizarrely, an 'Italian Village'. A ticket to all of these (bar the village which is free) costs 2400 Yen all in (about 12GBP or 24USD), which isn't a bad deal.

The aquarium was superb, and I found it better than Osaka's. This was mainly because it has an excellent selection of dolphins and whales, and, at several points throughout the day, dolphin and whale shows. I was lucky enough to catch the Orca show from underwater (through the tank viewing panel) and a later dolphin show from the 3000 person stadium built around the pool. Very impressive indeed. Add to this the usual array of displays (coral reef, deep sea, etc) and it's a good way to kill a few hours without getting (too) wet.

Later on I moved onto the Fuji. You first walk around in a self-guided fashion to see how Antarctic exploration on a ship is carried out (which is actually quite fascinating) and what the living conditions are like. It also houses the Antarctic museum, which is a small but very interesting (and bilingual) museum about the continent itself.

Moving on from there I went to the observation deck (not much in bad weather, really) and the Maritime museum (disappointingly entirely in Japanese).

Finally I figured I'd take a wander to the Italian Village, which proved quite...well, strange. Someone thought it'd be a good idea to attempt to recreate Venice (complete with canals, etc) in Nagoya, and really, it doesn't work. Think of a Disney version of Venice, like the whole city crammed into 3 square blocks - overdosing on statues and pizza restaurants is seemingly what this place does best. Oh, and ice-cream - I bought an ice-cream (which was crazy, considering the weather, but I don't care) from a place offering 'Gelato, softdrink, meet pie'. Do I really want to meet this 'pie' guy? I don't know.

Anyway. That's the Port Of Nagoya area - a mix of the impressive, the not quite so impressive (unless you speak Japanese, I guess) and the just plain wierd.

And that's also my day today. Tomorrow I travel back to Osaka, hopefully with a brief stop for a guided tour of the Suntory Yamazaki whiskey distillery thrown in for good measure, before flying to Okinawa on Saturday. I can't guarantee internet access there, but I'll try my best.

Take care everyone,
James