12 November 2015
For one no sorry
Food and shopping at Nagoya station
Twice in a row tonight, I walked into a restaurant, not a fancy restaurant, a place in a station with bar seating for travellers, held up a finger and said 'for one?' only to be told 'no sorry'.
I looked quizically at the spare seats at the bar, those which were taken were all salary men, some with suitcases, as my look turned to suspicion, on both times the girl guarding the joint would repeat long and drawn out 'sowwwwy' and motion me towards the door.
I had showered before I left, and was wearing jeans and a jacket and am clean shaven, so I dont get it. Maybe some white guys caused trouble here at some point in the last 50 years.
Anyway, I spent the whole evening wandering around the huge number of stores near, in, under and above the station. This was very confusing, and every now and then I would come outside to the street to get my position relative to a tall building.
In particular I enjoyed Tokyu Hands inside Takashimaya, I noted that Zippo now make more than just lighters, they have a range of gas powered hand warmers.
In one of my remaining nights here I will probably go to the restaurants on top of Takashimaya, there seems to be about 50 of them, perhaps they will seat me.
When walking from my hotel to the station, I kept seeing what I thought were pedestrian underpasses to cross the road.
Turns out theres the saddest mall of all down there. Most of the shops are old man hairdressers, used book shops, fortune tellers and best of all was a place that sells old fishing gear, presumably salvaged from the bottom of a river.
Japans version of the twin towers. Actually quite impressive. Theres another very tall building too, which has double decker lifts like they have in Dubai.
The malls under the twin towers are a lot more modern and shiny, with a whole heap of starbucks stores.
I settled for some kind of eggplant surprise stew, because they would seat me.
Underneath what I think was called midland is an entire row of high end chocolate shops all serving high tea. A triple stack of little cakes and sandwiches was only about $20. Too bad I had already eaten.
This Maserati would have to be a special order color, the same dental uniform green that high school students wear.
Christmas decorations in Japan are out of control. Inside every shop, on every street corner, in every tree.
In this alternative version of the nativity, Joseph is looking for a place to land so Mary can have baby jesus.
The canal through Nagoya is not quite as impressive as the one in Osaka.
And this is as close as I have seen to vandalism on these little statues that are everywhere. A person nearby seemed annoyed that I wanted to photograph it.