Garuda Indonesia Colours Magazine February 2019 | Page 79

Travel | Nagoya
Once the preserve of the elite, Nagoya Castle today
opens its doors to one and all, and there’s plenty
to keep you amused...
1 A peaceful vision of Nagoya Castle, Japan.
house of Japanese industry. This is where
Honda, Toyota and Mitsubishi (and luxury
Lexus) build their cars, and where other
world-famous brands make trains,
motorbikes, cameras and power tools.
From Sky Promenade, just look due east
to pinpoint an early emblem of the city’s
engineering aspirations. The Nagoya TV
Tower, the first of its kind in Japan, best seen
by night, was completed in 1954. It stands astride
a ribbon park that runs through Sakae, a long-
established downtown district where shopping
and entertainment power the economy.
Sakae has long been busy keeping all-comers
happy – as part of the old ‘castle town’ it has
provided nourishment and nightcaps for locals
and visitors for 400 years. Nagoya Castle
(around which the town formed) was the
principal stop on Minoji, a historical north–
south road. It linked two major cross-country
highways, Tokaido and Nakasendo, which
– like today’s Shinkansen trains – connected
Tokyo with Kyoto and Osaka…if perhaps
not quite so speedily.
5 Senses – Sight
TOYOTA MUSEUMS
As an industrial powerhouse, it is
unsurprising that Nagoya has several
museums that will appeal to the petrolheads
among us. The Toyota Automobile Museum
showcases cars dating back to 1886,
but if you’re into contemporary motors,
tours of the Toyota plant can be joined too.
Meanwhile the Toyota Commemorative
Museum of Industry and Technology
explores the company’s heritage and is based
in its original 1911 textile loom factories.
Sebagai pusat industri, tidak heran
jika Nagoya punya sejumlah museum
yang pasti menggoda para pencinta otomotif.
Kunjungi Museum Otomotif Toyota yang
menampilkan mobil-mobil dari tahun 1886,
namun bila Anda penyuka mobil mutakhir,
Anda dapat mengikuti' tur ke pabrik
Toyota. Selain itu, ada Museum Industri dan
Teknologi Toyota yang memamerkan warisan
teknologi perusahaan ini dan berlokasi
di bekas pabrik tekstil Toyota tahun 1911.
Once the preserve of the elite, Nagoya
Castle today opens its doors to one and
all, and there’s plenty to keep you amused:
tours and displays, gardens and a teahouse,
re-enactments and demonstrations, and
a calendar of seasonal events (from cherry-
blossom viewing in spring to chrysanthemum
bonsai displays in autumn).
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Station to Station
Suburban Okazaki (some 40 minutes southeast
of Nagoya Station) has a castle, too. The current
iteration is a 1950s reconstruction, albeit
a handsome one set in a fine park. Okazaki is
the principal firework manufacturing centre of
Japan – although they make something else
that’s equally banging here: miso. A couple
of venerable companies have been fermenting
the much-loved soya-bean-based seasoning
for centuries (Maruya since 1337, over a
century before the original castle was erected!)
You can get a taste of this hacho-miso across
Nagoya because it is the star of a must-eat
local dish called miso-katsu. Typically
presented as a deep-fried cutlet on steamed
rice ladled over with the salty, umami-rich
sauce, a growing number of restaurants offer
variations using chicken escalope or prawn in
breadcrumbs. It’s dangerously moreish (that
is, it could give you more of a waistline).
If you’re not particularly interested
in castles, you may not get all the way
to Okazaki, but certainly try going halfway,
to Arimatsu, which is on the same
Meitetsu railway line. Sightseers head here
for just one street. It’s lined with traditional
merchant houses, workshops and warehouses
where the 400-year-old tradition of making
shibori tie-dyed cloth is still going strong.
As well as boutique shops selling everything
from handkerchiefs to summer kimonos,
there’s a museum where the Arimatsu–
Narumi dyeing technique is demonstrated
by elderly practitioners of the craft (look out
for the annual festival too, normally held in
the first weekend of June).
It’s hard to believe that this quiet,
quaint street was once a short stretch of the
medieval equivalent of an expressway: the
great east–west coastal route called Tokaido.
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