Inuyama

Last Friday for my day off I went with a friend to Inuyama, a little town about 35 minutes train ride north of Nagoya. I taught at the school in Inuyama as a sub earlier this week. The school is literally in the station. When we got there we didn't have much of a plan. Sadly we were woefully unprepared, neither of us brought our Japan guide books and we didn't have a map or anything, so when we got off the train we wandered until we found a little international center. We then found a guide book with a tiny map in it in the library section, found what direction the castle was and discovered that it was near the river. The castle there is original, unlike Nagoya castle which got bombed during the war so had to be rebuilt (now it has an elevator in it apparently). We then started wandering the streets of Inuyama (which means dog mountain, in case you wanted to know). We found the river after about 30 minutes of walking and saw the castle in the distance on a hill not long after. The castle is kind of small, but there was a pretty killer view from the top. To go in was only 500 yen. Since it's an original you have to take off your shoes before entering and carry them in a plastic sack. The "stairs" in there were really steep, so steep in fact they border on wooden ladder. But, all the little old Japanese ladies there were climbing them like champs. There were 5 levels.





Left: Inuyama Castle

Right: View from the top.





After the castle we wandered in search of food and ended up at this traditional restaurant with no English menu or pictures. When we came in we were greeted by four business men who were boozing and watching sumo wrestling on the tv. I pointed to something on the menu, said "This please" and asked for 2. It turned out to be a pretty spectacular success.

Looks pretty tasty right? The fried stuff on the left was shrimp, eggplant, fish(?), and a leaf, not sure what kind but I ate it anyway. There was a soft boiled egg and various vegetables in the noodles.

There's also a pretty great museum in Inuyama, but we didn't have time to get there. Maybe next time. That's all for now!