takashimaya

As if we hadn’t visited enough cities we stopover in Nagoya. Evening driving in the area was bad on day 1 but today it’s kind of smooth. Nagoya has a castle but we’ll leave the cultural bits safely out of our way for now hahaha.

The center has pretty nice buildings like the Mode Gakuen Spiral Towers. It’s literally twisted. We took a quick look in the mall above the JR Station where Tokyu Hands has a very good stationery section. We also snatched stuff from the “to b. by Agnes b” shop including japan-market-only T-shirts :-) Btw it was summer of 2019 so we were hitting quite high temperatures…

day 2 – nagoya and into the wild wild east

We target Takayama and have decided to go via Gero. Hot spa bathing should be possible if we are not too late in Gero Onsen. When we arrive the weather starts changing and we are greeted by a massive rainfall. We blitz-visit the Gassho Village. To be honest it is not as memorable as Shirakawago in winter but it’s alright. Back downtown the matsuri is on. There is traditional dancing and food stalls from which we get excellent skewers. After a walk in the Onsen-Gai we pick Ogawaya, it was a good choice. Finally we arrive at night in the beautiful Higashiyama-An for an excellent rest and stay.

Mode Gakuen Spiral Towers

Find everything at Tokyu Hands

Including Plarail mega boards

I am serious it was very hot

Gassho village houses

Vintage pachinko machine

Skewers from the street stalls

Charlie Chaplin Statue in Gero

Before getting spirited away

We leave the Kobe area on day 1 with the Meishin highway to Kyoto first. It can get quite crowded but we are kind of lucky so it goes well.

We have been to Kyoto several times already, so as much as we love them we will unfortunately stay away from the temples… The kids gave us a strict program for this : brand stores and pikachu. To be honest there is so much to do : Ryoan-ji‘s stone garden contemplation, Kiyomizudera‘s wood structure and sanpo, Kodaiji’s illumination or Kokedera multi centennial site. They truly deserve more than a day!

day 1 – city hopper drive to Kyoto and Nagoya

After our first highway drive we arrive in Kyoto and park at random in a coin parking next to Takashimaya. Summer is scorching hot but the bus stops along Shijo-dori have mist sprayers. We walk to the Pokemon center that the kids wanted to visit so much and stop on the way for some shopping. Many brands are on the avenue, we visit Bape and Patagonia. Eventually we drove out to the Mitsui Outlet in Nagashima and finally we reach a not-so-memorable lodging just before Nagoya.

Kobe Urban highway