I almost skipped Nagoya. Most people do. It sits right on the line between Tokyo and Kyoto and everyone rides straight through. I stopped for the castle and gave myself a day.
Morning
Nagoya Castle went up in 1612 for Tokugawa Ieyasu and became the seat of the Owari branch of the family. In 1930 it was the first castle in Japan named a National Treasure. In 1945 most of it burned in the air raids. You feel that walking the grounds. The stone is original, the walls are original, almost none of the wood is.
Two things worth knowing. The tower you see is a concrete rebuild from 1959, closed since 2018 over earthquake safety. The city wants to rebuild it in wood using the original drawings. Probably the 2030s. You can photograph it, but you can't go in.
I got there at nine and had the place to myself for twenty minutes. The two gold fish on the roof are the shachihoko — tiger heads, carp bodies. They're meant to protect the building from fire, which is either sad or funny depending on your mood. Black tile, white walls, two gold fish, nobody else in the frame.
There are cats living in the gaps in the stone walls like they hold the deed. There's also a bronze of Katō Kiyomasa standing on a boulder with a fan in one hand. He supplied stone for the walls, and the story goes he rode the biggest blocks in, singing to keep the haulers in rhythm. Probably invented. That's his stone by the gate.
Then Honmaru Palace, which is the better half of the visit. Finished in 2018, traditional joinery, no shortcuts. You walk it in your socks. Cypress and gold leaf, wood new enough it still smells like a forest.
Afternoon
I ended up in Osu without meaning to. Covered arcade, streets of it, over a thousand shops. Thrift and vintage mostly, a sticker shop I spent too long in. Osu Kannon sits in the middle. Ieyasu had the temple moved here in 1612, the same year he started the castle.
The far ends of the arcade are quieter, and a lot of people living rough sit out of the heat under the roof. I bought a coffee and sat for an hour. That hour is the part I've thought about most since.
Night Time Fun
Sakae, where the bars stack five floors up the same building. Tebasaki, the peppery wings that exist to make you order another beer. Miso katsu. Then the smallest bar with the oldest bartender, which is what I always do. Seven seats, a man who'd been behind that counter thirty-one years, and a retired engineer drawing diagrams on a coaster to explain why this city's economy works the way it does. My Japanese is mediocre. His English was worse. We got there.
That's the part I'd come back for. Not the castle.
Bedtime
A tower hotel near the station, high enough to see the castle lit up to the north. One building, one day, worth the stop.