November/December 2023


bottles of spirit and pay a charge for each drink. He told me that he would always be open to 4am but sometimes 7am! The third bar was up a steep set of steps to the first floor, and you were met with loud Rock music. Despite being the largest of the three the layout was poor meaning that you were constantly getting up to allow people to use the facilities. I called it a night after 3 bars (and I won’t say how many drinks) as I was moving onto Nayoga the next morning. I literally could have been sucked into that place and it’s 300 bars every easily indeed. In summary don’t miss it – so unique!


Thursday 5th October I had thoroughly enjoyed my stay in Tokyo.


The Gate Hotel in Ryogoku had turned out to be great and very well located for local transport connections. Four Stops on the JR Line got me to the enormous Tokyo station within 10/15minutes. Tokyo station turned out to be easy to negotiate before I knew it, I was at the Shinkansen gates. In fact, I was there far too early, having watched a video which said arrive an hour before. Honestly, I would say be through the gate and at your platform 30 minutes before departure. When your train arrives at the platform a cleaning crew go onto every carriage and turn it around spic and span for the next journey. They also did something I had never seen in the world before – because the shinkansen trains run station to end station and back, they come into the end station pointing towards the buffers …. The cleaning crew then swivel the seats to face forward so every trip is always facing forward - brilliant!!


Boarding was easy as most people formed an orderly queue like the Japanese did – unfortunately one large group from somewhere in Europe let the Westerners’ side down by arriving and barging into the middle of the boarding groups – honestly you couldn’t make it up. Storage is easy on the overhead rails, so you have to lift your bag up there or I am sure someone near would help if you were having issues. However, if you can avoid it, don’t bring any bag greater than a total measurement of 160cm – a total of length by width by depth (you can bring up to 2 of these each with a total weight of 30kg -correct as of October 2023). If you do bring bigger bags, you will have to book special seats with extra storage or book the storage


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areas in each carriage – failure to do that may mean being refused travel. The seats were very spacious with lots of legroom and recline well. The journey literally flew by, and we managed to get a great view of Mount Fuji on the way past (book the right-hand window seats travelling from Tokyo). I was getting off at Nagoya and as the stops are short, I had to be ready to disembark as soon as the train stopped. All in all, a great experience! These trains are smooth to ride on despite their speeds of over 170mph. I think it’s interesting that these trains run the length of Japan at frequencies for every 30 mins, whereas in the UK we can’t even get one HS2 line beyond the Midlands?


I am staying 2 nights in Nayoga at a very new & modern hotel called the Nishitetsu Hotel Croom. I paid approx. £50 a night having booked a few months out. The hotel is lovely and again has everything you could want including Japanese Onsen style bathing on the top floor.


Last night I had my first Onsen bath in the hotel. Onsens are public hot spring baths separated into male and female baths. Usually, Onsens would be situated in areas of thermal springs, but hotels now install heated Onsens to attract clients. There is quite a bit of etiquette to the process you should follow in Onsens, so I read up on it and tried to follow it to the letter.


In short you remove your clothes and store them in a locker before entering the bath area naked (apart from a small privacy towel). You sit on a low stool and fill pales of warm water washing yourself down – there is even an order you are supposed to do this. You then wash your hair and body before showering yourself and the area clean. Finally, you can enter the hot bath and relax – you should never allow your hair or privacy towel to touch the water – I think that was the final rule! Anyhow I found it very relaxing and refreshing perhaps staying in the hot bath for 15 minutes. What I noticed was that when groups of friends came in, they used the time to talk and catch up. I think it’s a fabulous tradition which has out lasted domestic hygiene innovations. One of my reasons for coming to Nagoya was that this area and in particular the Gifu & Seki prefectures are famous for their blade and knife production, dating back to the early sword manufacture. I wanted to visit one specialist knife shop with a huge selection of knives and this morning I made that visit. I must have spent 90 minutes in the shop looking at the various knifes types and taking advice from the proprietor. Eventually I decided between either a Bunka or Santoku (both varieties) of general-purpose knives. Then I had to choose from the vast collection, trying out how they felt and how their sharpness cut through paper etc. Anyhow long story short, I am a happy boy. I have my knife – completely handmade from carbon steel meaning it will have to be kept very dry as whilst sharper they have a tendency to rust easily. Not cheap but hopefully a life-long investment. I then headed off to visit Nagoya Castle which I could just about catch a glimpse of from the hotel. When I arrived and paid my entry, I was approached by an older gentleman telling me that he was a volunteer guide and would I like him to take me round to give me a one-on-one tour. He told me that he volunteers to help promote Nagoya tourism and help those who visit understand more about the city he loves. He was not alone – there was perhaps 6 to 8 others waiting to offer tours also. I was blown away by this gesture of kindness & goodwill.


He the proceeded to walk me around the castle giving me every possible detail about the castle’s construction in 1610, its purpose in maintaining the Tokugawa family dynasty


for over 200 years and it’s more recent history having been destroyed by bombs in the 2nd World War and rebuilt again. Unfortunately, the rebuilt Castle Tower now needing to be re-built again because of concrete weakness. The construction of castle was overseen by


one of Shogun’s Feudal Lords who brought 20,000 men with him from an island off Nagasaki – over 900 miles away! They built the rock foundations in 3 months. The castle has an outer water moat and an inner moat which was designed with corners in the shape of a Cormorant bird’s neck to create bottlenecks as ‘kill zones’. Needless to say, the Castle was never conquered. He did leave me with one funny story about the beautiful paintings of tigers and leopards and the gold walls and silk screens. He explains that tigers and leopards were never native to Japan. They believe that the master artist who painted them had seen them in an early book from Japan. When he drew them, he had assumed that the tiger was the male and the leopard the female. Hence why they are depicted side by side and with cubs – something you would never see in nature. I thanked my host who still refused to take anything, even for charity. Nagoya is a beautiful city, much smaller and less frantic than Tokyo. The streets and shopping areas are lovely to walk through – tree-lined and public music being played in some areas. There are many wonderful visitor attractions so maybe it should get a bigger footfall from those racing from Tokyo to Kyoto. I am glad that at least I got a day here.


Continued in the Janaury Edition 2024... What’s Next?


Glenn’s four week adventure continues from Nagoya to Kyoto, Osaka, Hiroshima, Fukuoka/Hakata, Nagasaki and Sapporo. Drop in on the ‘best food yet’, his longest train journey and a Sapporo ‘secret sauce’!


GO EAST: JAPAN PART 1 31


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