Alex Quinn's Japan Journal

6/20/2005, Sightseeing in Nagoya with Akemi and her nephew, really good ice cream

In the morning, the day after our trip to the Aichi Expo, we met at the train station.  The expo was centered on Akemi's older nephew's wishes.  So, the next day, her younger nephew got to do something fun to him.  He made a trip with his mom to the Pokemon Park in Nagoya.  Not so interesting to us.  So, Akemi, her nephew, and I set out to do some sightseeing.

I'll say right now, second to spending time with Akemi and her family, the main attraction for me was the ice cream.  Lots of really, really good ice cream.  More on that later.

But, of course Akemi and her family take priority over ice cream.  Here is Akemi, her sister, and her nephews at the train station in the morning, just before we split into two groups.

We didn't have a solid plan, but we had a guidebook and some ideas.  We set out for the harbor area, home to a big aquarium and a big ship you can tour.  It sounded pretty neat.  Unfortunately, we learned that Nagoya closes on Monday.  Not really.  But, pretty much all the tourist attractions at the port are closed on Monday, including the aquarium and the ship.  So, we found a place in the guide book which rents bicycles which can be ridden to Nagoya Castle (Nagoya-jo).  We went there.  The bicycle rentals were also closed on Monday.

Somewhere along the way, we stumbled upon Italy Village (Itaria-mura or Italy-mura).  It was really neat.  A little area of Nagoya built from the ground up with an Italian theme.  It was really neat.

Italian looking buildings.

A fake canal going down the center.

Complete with gondola drivers.  The drivers were all caucasian, although probably not actually Italian.  They played surprisingly tasteful classic Italian music.

Notice the statue in the background.

It was in this Italy Village where my life changed.  Well, a little.  They had a gelato shop.  Although it was only 10:30 AM or so, it was hot, we had been walking, and I asked if we could stop for some gelato.  Good choice.  I got two flavors, salt and Mascarpone (cheese).  The salt carried the salt flavor you'd find in salt-water taffy, but stronger and without the flavor of the taffy.  Hard to describe, but really, really good.  And the Mascarpone was a little like the taste of really good cheesecake, without the texture of the cheesecake or the crust.  It was really hot.  We were sweaty.  And, the ice cream brought us into a little heaven inside of Italy Village, inside of Japan.  And, we ate it while watching these very amusing gondola drivers giving rides to Japanese tourists.  It was good enough that I'd consider going back to Nagoya just for the ice cream.

While Akemi and her nephew made a run to the bathroom, I snuck in a second gelato shop for even more.  This one had more, truly remarkable flavors.  I had some "Champagne Rose" gelato.  It had cranberries mixed in.  Very cold, sweet, and tart.  Really, really good.  I badly wanted to go for one more flavor.  They had so many good ones, but I was interested in the fig-rum gelato.  But, in the interest of saving face and coronary arteries, I held off.  I went away, already trying to justify to myself the expense of making another trip to Nagoya to enjoy this heavenly gelato.

After that... oh... that delicious ice cream.... mmm...  after that, we headed for Nagoya Castle.  I learned how learned Akemi's nephew is.  He and Akemi both have an interest in history.  Akemi is very knowledgeable on the subject.  And, to my surprise, her nephew also knew a fair amount.  I guess he pays attention at school and listens to what Akemi and others tell him.  He's a smart kid.  Anyway, the castle was pretty neat.

A picture from the castle.

After the castle, we had lunch, noodles in a little shop at the castle.  I was thinking of getting more ice cream.  There was a place sellig soft-serve ice cream, including the usual vanilla, green tea, etc.  But, they also had miso soft-serve ice cream.  Yeah.  Miso!  Again, in the interest of not looking like a complete pig, I held off.  But, I badly wanted to taste it.  So, I waited and watched carefully.  Finally, an old man ordered the miso ice cream.  The way this machine works is that the ice cream comes in little single serving containers and it just squeezes them out onto the cone.  So, after she served him his ice cream, I asked her if I could have the empty container which had just a dab of the miso ice cream left on it.  Maybe 1½ teaspoons at most.  It was totally strange and perhaps even rude of me to ask.  But, I was motivated.  Besides being a novel, interesting flavor, it was actually quite good.  I'd definitely have it again.  It's hard to say just what it tated like, other than miso, but it was good.  They also had melon ice cream and a tart citrus ice cream.

A poster on the front of the ice cream machine.  The miso is in the bottom left.

So, it was a good day.  And, we had a lovely time walking around Nagoya together, the three of us.

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