21 October 2016
City in decline
The Nagano branch of the Tokyu department store
I am convinced, Nagano is a city in serious decline.
Perhaps this is the future for much of Japan, with a declining population, a reluctance to allow non Japanese in, negative interest rates, and the worlds largest debt to GDP ratio, it is hard to understand how they will pay for the upkeep of anything.
Nagano simply does not have people to fill its many buildings. They all died or left!
I have no printed facts to back this statement up, just observations.
It is Friday night, and the only department store in town with retaurants on the top level has not a single customer. Not one in the seven restaurants they have!
The train station is busy, of people leaving for the weekend. I watched for a while as trains were arriving empty and leaving full....just like Adelaide airport!
Anyway, 3 nights in Nagano is more than enough, tomorrow I will go to Toyama, but before then, I did finally find a Japanese curry shop that is not CoCo.
I wish I had more funny stuff to write, but that often relies on observing people, and there are not many people so theres nothing funny to write about.
Well, the earthquake coverage is over, some houses have damaged roof tiles. Also my toes are in tip top condition because I wrap the second and little toe in paper medical tape each morning. Neither of those things are funny.
A giant chilli. One of the famous foods of Nagano is that mix of msg and red powder they give you in ramen shops. It never seems to have much chilli in it despite being red.
The Nagano variety comes in a distinctive little tin you can see all over Japan in the top ramen shops (according to the sign I read), except I never saw the tin before coming to Nagano, I always see a different brand entirely.
This is someones house, which already has both halloween and christmas lights up.
The top floor restaurants of the Tokyu department store. They have optimistically placed seating along the outside of empty restaurants in case you feel like waiting.
I took a photo of traffic out of the lift as I was coming back down from the empty restaurants.
This is the main train station. Really! Not the Shinkansen part thats above ground, but the terminus of 3 local lines which is underground in the same station as the Shinkansen. The lines do not take IC cards yet, just paper tickets.
That fenced off area with a bucket collecting dripping water is a permanent fixture.
Curry time! I was very happy to find this place down a dark alley. The machine you put coins into to get a meal ticket had no pictures, but there were pictures out the front on the window.
The cook was very helpful, as I was his only customer. First we went out the front and I pointed at the picture, then he operated the machine, then he handed me the ticket, then he went back around to the other side of the counter and I handed him the ticket.
I chose based on the one with the most added vegetables, the picture showed eggplant, and I got eggplant. I also got pineapple. Actually it was delicious.
Final picture this evening is to highlight that Nagano has no Mcdonalds! Not even in the station that actually has 2 starbucks on the outside. Instead, Nagano has a huge Sukiya beef bowl store with drive through and parking area.