3 November 2026
Culture day might affect these hours
Toyama Sogawa area
I had to have pizza for dinner. It was either that or a burger, or walk to the station. Not only did I have to have pizza for dinner, but it was terrible, and the guy that made it for me had a runny nose, and it was expensive. Disaster!
Today is culture day, I do not know what that means other than that I walked past 100 or more closed restaurants, and others that were closing at 7pm. That is ridiculously early even for a holiday. The department store restaurant floor was closed completely so I guess they take culture seriously in Toyama.
I desperately looked on google maps for anywhere that was open that was not near the train station, but they all said Culture day might affect these hours. Now in hindsight, I am confident the train station was fully open, and full of people and restaurants, so why did I not go there? I have no answer, and now I might have a cold and pizza induced food poisoning.
A couple of interesting things I discovered in my research after typing the above, I was last in Toyama in October 2016, so 10 years ago. I last ate pizza on 10 November 2019 in Yamagata, not just the last time I ate it in Japan, the last time I ate it anywhere, and I love pizza, but I enjoy depriving myself of the things I love even more. Tonight has helped me to no longer love pizza.
The covered shopping street here is very long, and as they all are, mostly closed, although as I ranted about above, many stores might just be closed early today. It is hard to tell as they always have garage doors when they are closed.
I remembered this area from the last visit, but I remember it having a lot of big plants. I will compare to my photos from then and do a forensic analysis.
This place was open, but I was not ready to eat yet, in hindsight, I should have.
This is a cool store, it appears to be government run showcasing a lot of the local wares. Lets go inside!
It is rare for me to go inside any store, so this place should feel honoured.
Toyama has an extensive tram network of old and new trams, bendy and not bendy.
The far end of the Shotengei was particularly deserted.
There were a lot of art installations along the shopping street, including a lot that are clock themed.
And now, the terrible pizza. Raw mushrooms on top of cold prosciutto on top of lettuce, on top of pizza base with cheese. The salad is more raw mushrooms and cabbage, no lettuce. And to top it off, the most expensive meal of this trip at almost $15 AUD! All with a side dish of snotty pizza assembly boy. Shocking. There were other customers in there who appeared to be regulars too!
Tomorrow is a hiking day, the sun should be out.