As there’s still a part of me that’s sad to not have completed my science-oriented education, I made a visit to the Nagoya City Science Museum today.
On my way there I stopped for breakfast at a local chain. The sandwich was decent, nothing special. Point of interest here is the teabag coaster that absorbs the tea left in the bag. Stops your plate from getting all messed up!
Onwards to the museum! It’s a really modern design, with the top half of the ball being the biggest planetarium in the world! It consists of three buildings each with their own theme. Expectedly all the explanations were in Japanese but they have an app with the information for some of the exhibits in different languages.
They also have a few set shows going on that you can participate in. The first one is a show around their 9m tall tornado. Having a staff member dressed up as a witch/wizard and performing some magic with the tornado machine.
In the basement they had their temporary exhibit about a mission on one of the poles. On another floor they also host a DeepFreezing Lab, recreating the conditions on the poles with -31°C. Don’t worry you get a long coat for the lab, the picture is from the temporary exhibit.
By now it was time for the planetarium session I booked, and well it didn’t amaze that much.. language might have been the biggest factor to that. So save yourself some money (Y400) and leave the planetarium behind you.
The last demonstration I went too was in the Electric Discharge Lab where they show the electric discharge on a Van De Graaff generator. And show you their Tesla coils in actions.
With waiting between shows/demonstrations and running around in the other exhibits I probably spend more time here than you should, for me it totalled up to 5 hours being there. But you can easily cut down an hour with the planetarium that also gives you more time slots for the other demonstrations thus a shorter time there. I definitely enjoyed being there, but it’s not for everyone.
Lunch was a bowl of rice with egg and a side of udon noodles.
Next up is a local temple, but not of any special history value that I got to know off.
Next to it was a shopping district I was interested in and spend much of the remaining day. Every two hours this screen starts playing some nice clips with the dragons in the lead. Eventually the dragons also start to light up and even shoot out some water.
For dinner I settle with a local café and try out their lasagne. After that I visited Water-7 a One piece themes Amusement Café. The inside was just filled with One Piece figures and memorabilia. Even the glasses they serve in are in-theme!
With the plan to visit the castle, I left my luggage in a locker and took the metro towards the castle grounds. There I learned that the castle tower itself is in renovation (until 2022) but the grounds surrounding it are open including the Nagoya Honmaru Goten Palace that only recently opened to the public after it was rebuild the traditional way. The original palace survived many natural disasters and political changes. But a WWII air raid burned it down.
But first I noticed that here you can enter one of the watch-houses often seen on the corners of the domains. As I’ve been curious about these after seeing them like, everywhere on the castle grounds. It was my first stop of the day. The inside is fairly simple, 3 stories of big open spaces with windows only on the outward facing walls and on the first floor the option to throw stones to climbing invaders.
Then I took a guided tour in a port of the Honmaru. They have English guides available. Here I was amazed. As I said before this palace was rebuild only recently using all the classic techniques. With a result that it’s all bright brown in contrast to all the previous sites I visited.
After the side building I visited the main part of this palace where the old lords would receive their guests. The walls of the rooms here are also adored with paintings in gold. Pretty much the same style as the Nijo-jo castle. Note: these are digital replica’s, the real ones that got saved from the fires are now in in restauration!
Unfortunately the castle itself is undergoing earthquake proofing and a restoration towards a wooden build instead off the concrete mass that was erected after the war. But to compensate for that they had the option to visit the castle in VR!
Next up, as usual was strolling around the city. Found the Nagoya tower and the central park, a shounen jump store and a platform called the spaceship that’s two floors high and is for 90% filled with water. This platform also provides a nice view of the Sakae area.
After tall that I made my way back to the station, picked up my stuff and proceeded to my hostel.