On this trip, we went with 20+ people from our temple and perhaps 60 or so from other Hawaii temples to see some of the most important sites for Buddhists of the Soto Zen sect. Our bishop and several ministers had made arrangements for us to get special access to five different temples. Additionally, they had engaged a tour company to not only transport us between the temples but to take us to some popular tourist sites along the way.
We flew from Honolulu to Nagoya on a JAL Dreamliner. The service was really good and the 787 was spacious, even in coach. On the flight I watched Godzilla Minus One. I have to say that it’s the best Godzilla movie ever except for maybe when Godzilla Minus Zero comes out. It wasn’t just a guy in a rubber suit stomping Tokyo. I mean it was still scary to see the big guy take a bite out of the Wako department store in Ginza, but there were also real characters with complex, real emotions. And of course when the hero needed an airplane, it had to be a Shinden interceptor. But you came here for a travel blog, not a movie review. When we arrived and cleared immigration and customs, there were bus coaches waiting to take us to the hotel. On the way to the hotel, I talked with one of the tour company employees about Nagoya, her home town. She recommended I try ひつまぶし(hitsumabushi), a unique eel dish with a four-step eating ritual. Too bad we weren’t staying. I’ve put it on my list of foods to try in the future.
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| Our plane at HNL |
On arrival at the hotel, the first order of business was to go out and get せいせいすい purified water for my CPAP machine. On my way to a Welcia pharmacy, I spotted a huge Diakoku drugstore - which was kind of a pharmacy combined with a 100 yen store. I got my water here instead. On the way back I ran into a huge crowd coming out of the Zepp Nagoya theater where the pop-rock band Sumika had just performed. I was like a fish swimming upstream.
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| Daikoku Drugstore |
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| Liminal Space: Shinkansen Underpass |
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| アメンボ or water strider themed manhole cover. |
