nagoya-osaka

A night in a smoking room was not the best accommodation, but what were we to do? They were fully booked. On the other hand, I made Satoshi promise to always get a non-smoking room from here on out.

After checking-out, we walked to our first destination, the Toyota Museum.

Along the way, we made friends with this guy. He was sitting in front of a temple, we said "good morning" and he insisted on giving us a hug.

We arrived near the museum early and decided to get some breakfast at a coffee shop called Happy End.

I had a Nagoya favorite, Ogura toast. I've made this in the past, but wanted to try the "real deal"....450 yen

They put a lot of sweet bean paste on their toast...love!

Satoshi just had buttered toast, his toast also came with a hard boiled egg....350 yen

In Nagoya, they are known to give you more breakfast than you order...nice!

We "thought" it wouldn't be too busy at the Museum...wrong, there was a massive line! a very chaotic massive line.

You would think places like these would have lining up down to a science already...nope! boy, did Satoshi chew out the guy in charge of the line we were in...definitely rare to see him so peeved.

I was amazed with this museum. It starts out with the history of Toyota.

Thing I learned was that Toyota actually started out with the invention of automated weaving machines not cars.

They show you how people weaved before automation and then they also show you all the machines in action.

Then when you move to the car area, they show you how Toyota invented their cars.

They took apart a Ford to learn how cars were made.

Gear shifts, brakes, wooden body models...car enthusiasts would definitely have a blast here.

From this museum you can walk about 10 minutes down the street to the Noritake museum.

This paled in comparison to the Toyota museum.

For one thing, no photos allowed.

And another thing is that most of the explanations are by video, no real demonstrations...meh!

It was getting late so we headed to the station for a late lunch at Kitchen Nagoya before making our way back to Osaka.

This was where we got most of our Nagoya food fixes.

Miso katsu and ebi fry for Satoshi.

In Nagoya they use hatcho miso (a red miso), so their sauce is quite dark and rich.

I got their sampler (mini miso katsu, an ebi fry and some tebasaki (chicken wings)). This also came with some edamame and hiyayakko (cold tofu).

We also tried Kinshachi beer, Aichi's craft beer.

Blue label is a Pilsner.

Akamiso is an Alt bier (German for old beer, which refer to the brewing technique) that has hints of red miso.

Both were good with these foods, though the alt beer was quite bitter.

We also tried Nagoya cochin pudding. Dense custard pudding made from the eggs of Nagoya's brand chickens, cochin...so good!

It was a great Silver Week. We were blessed with great weather (for once! usually we have a couple of bad weather days during our trips) and we got to do a lot and of course, eat a lot.

I hope you enjoyed our adventure as much as we did.

Happy End
3-5 Noritakeshinmachi
Nishi-ku, Nagoya

Kitchen Nagoya
1-1-4 Meieki, inside of Umaimondori
Nakamura-ku, Nagoya
Phone: 052.561.6669
Hours: 10:00-22:30