oops i didn’t write again for two days hehe
Janaury 3rd we open with a trip to Atsuta Jingu for rhatsumode – It’s supposed to be the most important shrine in Nagoya, housing the deity Amaterasu and one of the three sacred treasures, the Kusanagi no Tsurugi. Unfortunately, almost no one has ever seen the sword since it’s such an important item… but it probably exists there… right?
Admittedly it’s a little expensive to visit for hatsumode… You have to pay 1000 yen to pray at the main shrine (most people just pray a little distance away to save 1000 yen), pay 800 yen to visit the treasure warehouse, then 400 yen to visit the Kusanagi sword exhibit. The treasure warehouse mostly houses some documents, and given my inability to read anything in Japanese in there I’m just looking at a bunch of old scriptures. I’m sure they’re really important though. I can better relate iwth the Kusanagi exhibit though, as they have on display a good number of blades that are entrusted to the shrine for ceremonial purposes.
We head over at about 11:00 to Atsuta Houraiken, one of the restaurants that lay claim to having founded the hitsumabushi eel dish. Unfortunately, the queue to enter the restaurant was alread yat 14:50 at that time, so I was a little blindsided by the fact so many people had already come in advance to claim a spot, but no matter, we must eat here… So we head back to Osu to kill some time at the arcade until our time to eat arrices.
Our side dish is some fried eel bones. It only costs 400 yen and I was curious, so it’s hard to go wrong,.. It’s kind of like eating potato chips, but a little harder to bite through. You can probably skip it… We also have a tamagoyaki with eel mixed in. Also a banger, but maybe not necessary when it costs 1200 yen. The hitsumabushi itself is awesome – eel is the best I’ve eaten, and I prefer eating it with wasabi over eating it as an ochazuke over eating it plain. They do have a number of chain stores in the area, but since I’m in Nagoya, it makes the most sense to eat at the honten, even if it takes 3 hours to wait!
nice suu an kou bro
We didn’t have anything else planned, but after eating so much at 16:00 we weren’t sure if we’d be able to eat dinner… but my friend got hungry at 20:00, so it was time to eat miso katsu at Yabaton!
I do think the red miso sauce poured onto the katsu is definitely really good – I don’t think I can quite make a comparison against eating curry with tonkatsu as the flavor is quite different… but it’s good! They also have a few stores in Tokyo so you don’t necessarily need to eat this in Nagoya… but after seeing just about every Yabaton store have a line during dinner time, I figured we couldn’t go wrong eating here.
Also swung by the local Matsuzakaya department store food paradise floor to pick up some Tochiotome strawberries. This variety is tochiotome from Tochigi prefecture – I suppose they are ok letting other people grow their variety of strawberries (these are from Aichi). It seems like they discount their fruits at night, so for me it’s a good deal to pick these up for 2160 yen instead of 3960 yen, so I feel like I won here! They do taste better than the strawberries we have at our American grocery stores (maybe about 30-40% better, if I had to approximate). I wouldn’t eat these regularly… but it’s worth trying for sure!
The next morning we stopped by Komeda’s coffee to have proper ogura toast! Our hotel breakfast buffet has a station for it…. but I need a professional to help prepare the toast for me: Here it is:
The azuki paste is ver wet and easily spreadable compared to our hotel’s azuki paste… so this spread on very easily! The butter and azuki complement each other very well on the fluffy yet crisp toast. Highly recommend! It’s also cheap with this and the coffee set for only 540 yen.
First up today is Inuyama Castle! I don’t personally know too much about it… but it’s an original castle, versus those that have been destroyed and rebuilt, so it carries a lot of significant historical value. One must note however that the castle has extremely steep steps, so it is definitely not ADA compliant. The top tower offers some nice view of the nearby river and town. The area outside of the castle also features many chain ropes for presumably what should be long lines. I think it’s nice to see, but I couldn’t imagine having to wait to get into the castle… that would simply be too much.
Next up in Inuyama is the Meiji Mura museum! A while ago some dudes were noticing that a lot of the old buildings from the Meiji era were being destroyed and was like, damn we should try to preserve these buildings before they’re all gone, so they set aside some space here to relocate all of these buildings for historical preservation. I like that most of the buildings are furnished such that they seem like they could be in use as of today while being accurate to the time of when the building was dated, making it feel very alive. Unfortunately my friend slipped on some steps and sprained his foot so we had to cut the visit here short, but this was definitely an unexpected surprise! Do be prepared to walk a lot though as the area is very open and spacious.
Killed the rest of the night back at home eating mickey D’s and goofing off at the arcade… seems like my friend can walk a little bit but not too much so we will just play mahjong fight girl at the arcade all today today (1/5/26)! cya
slop, japan