2 November 2024
Being dry is overrated
SCMaglev and railway park
Peak amount of rain. So much rain that the main bullet train line was briefly suspended. It is also a long weekend, so a lot of people that live in Nagoya are desperate to leave town to go somewhere less boring. The train station was chaotic. Luckily I am not taking a bullet train today. I am also not hiking.
Despite all the dire warnings, the forecast says the sun will be shining at 5pm, then at least a week of no rain. I have some doubts.
I had to find somewhere indoors to go, so a museum of sorts. I have been to the excellent Toyota loom and car museum before so that was not it. Legoland and Nintendo land are both really expensive and I would get arrested for being a single middle aged man at a child friendly venue. So where can a solo weird looking creepy old man go alone? Train museum of course.
Here is the view from my hotel room window. I can open it a crack and hang my camera out in the rain.
The train museum is in the port area south of the city next to Legoland on the Aonami line. I was about an hour too early to go in, but that gave me time to splash in some puddles. First up, Maker's pier, which has a number of places to learn different crafts, but also a lot of places for school bands to practice brass instruments. Also a petting zoo.
I did not actually know Legoland was here before I spotted it from the train station. There is not really anyone lined up to get in, even though it is probably 30 minutes from opening time when I took this photo. It is over $40 to get in and is mainly rides for small children. I have read numerous reports of men who love lego getting arrested at various Legolands around the world for daring to go to one without a child in tow. So if you do plan to go, abduct a child first.
The Legoland hotel looks great. I assume everything in the rooms is made of Lego.
Here is the hotel reception. It had a strong smell of urine.
Time to head over to the strangely named SCMaglev and Railway Park. Look at the line! I am standing at the back of the line here 5 minutes before opening, but it really took no more than 5 minutes to get in from here.
Train time. This is some kind of interactive movie presentation where the lights go on the 3 trains briefly as the movie plays. They did not allow photos in this area, but I saw those signs only after taking this photo.
I took no interior photos on my bullet train journey yesterday, I will make up for it today. Modern bullet trains still look exactly like this.
Here is the main hall. It was quite impressive really.
4 generations of bullet trains. The N700 I rode on yesterday is closest to camera. The noses get progressively longer, unlike mine which seems to get progressively shorter and more pig like.
They have most of a busted bullet train outside, which you can sit on to eat your lunch. The cafe sells overpriced themed bento boxes, when they opened at 11am there were at least 100 people in the line to get a lunch box, I did not join that line.
At the back of the main hall are all these other trains in a closed off area. Not just a sawn off front bit of each one either, but the full carriage. I am not sure why you cannot go and explore these ones a bit more.
Probably the emperor's magical space train from pre ww2 when he had confirmed super powers.
Of course there is a diorama. I got in trouble for photographing one at the Tokyo train museum because there were children present. And so now that I think of it, I got told off at that museum a couple of times for taking photos while other people were taking photos. So I am not even safe at the most popular middle aged sad lonely man activity of all, train spotting.
Bonus train shots of the outside of trains.
Time to go inside. Since trains in Japan do not have eating areas anymore, I will focus on eating areas on trains in a museum.
Here is a kitchen.
This dining car area is on the top level of the old double decker bullet train. OK, that is enough train museum.
Next up I caught a train back to Nagoya and walked in the rain to a covered shopping street. Apparently a historic (code for semi abandoned) Shotengai at Endo-Ji, which is north west of Nagoya station.
It is not particularly long, and for some reason, Paris themed. There were signs saying it is Paris themed but mainly it was closed garage doors with French flags out the front.
The main place of activity was the bouldering studio. We now all know what bouldering is due to the recent Paris olympics, thus solving the mystery of why they think this historic area is a part of Paris.
I was now nearby the Nagoya castle, which I visited in great weather on a previous trip. I thought I might as well pay the $5 admission and go up to the top of the castle and observe the rain. After buying a ticket there is a sign, main castle closed. Cool. Glad you showed me after paying. Anyway, this is a crap photo, but there are 5 people here doing the changing of the guard, with umbrellas. They were comically bad so I am genuinely wondering if it was just some self appointed cosplayers.
Here is the closed castle. Closed while they install more lifts, escalators and gift shops, you can see a lift attached to it at the bottom right corner of this shot.
OK one more castle shot, it is a very modern re-creation, 1980's I think.
And for my last pic on a very rainy day, the moat. Most of the moat is full of building rubble and tractors, here is a section that still looks a bit dark and mossy. Will it stop raining at 5pm? Only time... will tell.