Nagoya and Iida: First Impressions

After our day in Hikone, we again boarded the JR Line to Nagoya where we would be catching a bus. Nagoya was a city I never got to spend much time in, but it is definitely on the checklist for cities to visit during my next trip to Japan. Nagoya is one of the larger cities of the Honshu island of Japan, boasting not only a large JR station rivaling that of Kyoto, but also the Chūbu Centrair International Airport and the Meitetsu Bus Center. It is also the capital  of the Aichi Prefecture, making it a central port of Japan.

 Our business in Nagoya that day was at the Meitetsu Bus Center.  This is the central hub for the Meitetsu bus line, one of the largest lines in the country allowing you to take overnight or daytime buses to most anywhere in Honshu. We only had about 40 minutes to kill until the bus left for Iida, so we set down our luggage, grabbed some snacks from the convenience store located in the center itself and relaxed.

 Being the oh-so-eager students we were, we started grilling our sensei about the translations of some very random words, like vampire, which is kyuuketsuki by the way. Someone, I forget whom exactly, happened to ask what the translation for rabies was. After Holman-sensei told us the translation, kyoukenbyou, naturally all of us tried pronouncing the new word. At this time our sensei made the observation we were probably scaring the locals how happened to hear what we were saying. How would you feel if you saw a group of people speaking a foreign language and the only word you could discern was “rabies?”

 This observation quickly put a stop to our shenanigans and tried to brush it off as a normal language lessons by asking more normal words like tiger and horse, tora and uma. Finally, our bus arrived and we set off for Iida around 8 p.m. local time and the ride would take right around two hours depending on which Iida stop you chose to get off at. Even the cheapest buses in Japan are usually fairly comfortable and I would equate them to a Megabus trip. A friend and I watched a movie on my laptop during the ride and shortly after the credits rolled we pulled up to our destination, Iida station.

 Arriving at 10 p.m. on a Saturday night, our first impressions of Iida were vastly different from the actual town we would come to love. Nightlife was abuzz and happy, and admittedly loud, drunks were coming in and out of bars and the whole scene just didn’t fit with the place we were supposed to be studying an ancient Japanese performing art. We half-seriously joked with our sensei if he’d brought us to the right town.

 He assured us we were in the right place and after collecting our luggage from the bus platform, we set off to find the hotel we would be staying at overnight. We were set to meet our host families at a welcome party the following day. Our sensei led us along the back alleys of Iida at a rather hurried pace considering how much luggage we were all carrying. The streets seemed to be designed like a maze and even our sensei seemed lost at some points. In my opinion, it was sheer dumb luck we stumble across our hotel, the Wakayama Inn, no matter how much my sensei protests he knew where he was going the whole time.

The rooms here were rather simple with just a tatami mat and futons for guests to sleep on. There was a television in each room that picked up some local channels. After settling in, some of us left to find a 7-11 convenience store to get some late-night snacks and pull out money from the international atm. We wound down with some local programming we could barely get the gist of and after a rather tiring day, fell asleep rather easily.

 One benefit to this particular hotel was the complimentary Japanese-style breakfast provided in the morning. We had broiled fish, rice, miso soup and some tea, all of which was delicious and made by hand. And we can’t forget perhaps Japan’s most infamous food, natto. Made by fermenting soybeans, natto is a very polarizing food due to it’s powerful smell, strong flavor and slimy texture. I for one, didn't care for it very much. I'll try any food once and once was more than enough for me and natto. With breakfast finished and cleared away, we grabbed our bags and went to meet our host families.

Useful phrase in this week's post (and some more bonuses):

Honshu - ほんしゅう - 本州


Meaning: The largest and primary of the four main Japanese islands. Contains major cities such as Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka, Nagoya and HIroshima.

Hokkaido - ほっかいどう - 北海道


Meaning: The northern-most and second-largest of the four main Japanese islands. Famous cities include Sapporo and it is home to the Ainu people, a culture deeply intertwined with the early years of Japan.

Kyushu - きゅうしゅう - 九州


Meaning: The southern-most and third-largest of the four main Japanese islands. Major cities include Fukuoka and Nagasaki.

Shikoku - しこく - 四国


Meaning: The smallest of the four main Japanese islands, located just south of Honshu. The largest city is Matsuyama.

Kyuuketsuki - きゅうけつき - 吸血鬼


Meaning: vampire

Kyoukenbyou - きょうけんびょう- 狂犬病


Meaning: rabies

Tora - とら - 虎


Meaning: tiger

Uma - うま - 馬


Meaning: horse

Natto - なっとう - 納豆


Meaning: fermented soybeans