We stopped by Nagoya. Why? Because if you’ve seen a map, it’s south of Tokyo. And we’re heading south. Why are we heading south? Because there’s a floating torii in Southern Japan that spent the entire year I lived there under scaffolding. I used to walk Charge there and neither of us got to see it.
So, we stopped in Nagoya. Because we were running ourselves a bit ragged, we took a “slow” week. We happened to stay incredibly close to a very nice mall, which also happened to be on the other side of (or part of, it’s unclear) Noritake Garden. I love gardens. I love the outdoors. Noritake Garden is the name of a series of buildings and exhibits owned by the Noritake dish company. I don’t know why they named it that. The fountain and grass really don’t count, in my opinion.
That being said, Noritake Garden is a lovely little spot of brick buildings. The dish museum doesn’t allow pictures, but it’s actually pretty neat. If you’ve traveled throughout Japan, you may have come across different regions and their very specific exports – Hagi is known for very traditional Japanese pottery that is referred to as Hagi ware. Arita is known for blue and white porcelain, otherwise known as Arita ware. Each style and material are very unique. Noritake makes porcelain and bone china. In their little museum, you can see how the process is done, how some pieces are painted, and they even offer little painting classes if you want your own dish. Since I couldn’t imagine trying to pack that, I didn’t do the class. The stations were very neat and there were exhibits for exclusive and interesting sets they created over the years; these were truly magnificent.
Interestingly, as we made our way through the displays, it became apparent (and on some placards was even spelled out) that these dishes were produced in Japan, but… they were made for Americans. I think when I was packing up my grandmother’s house this very year, I came across an early nineteen hundreds Noritake set, which my mom had pointed out to me because it was Japanese. The world is sometimes a very small place.
Outside of that, we ventured to Ghibli Park in Nagoya.
Ghibli is a popular Japanese animation studio, led by Hayao Miyazaki, which introduced many westerners to Japanese animation (anime) and Japanese movies in the nineties. While not my introduction to anime, Spirited Away may have been the first Japanese feature length film I saw. My ex had a huge obsession with studio Ghibli, and so I’ve seen many, many of their movies over the years, though I have to say I may actually prefer Mamoru Hosoda or Makoto Shinkai’s works these days.
Spirited Away was the highest grossing film in Japanese history until just recently, holding that title for several decades. It is an incredible, fantastical film about a girl and her parents getting lost in an abandoned Japanese amusement park that turned out to lead into the spirit world. An incredible number of props and scenes from the film are faithfully remade in the Ghibli Park warehouse.
Ghibli Park is not an amusement park; there aren’t rides or actors or interactive experiences. Instead (and unlike Noritake), it really is a park filled with gardens, buildings, and artistic recreations of movie scenes, homes, castles, and sculptures. Like Miyazaki’s works, things meander slowly, stretching out and leisurely strolling through Japanese hillsides. I don’t think this park is really meant to be done in a few hours, running around excitedly, and was instead designed for a lazy afternoon. To sit and grab a scone from Gütiokipänjä bakery and watch Howl’s castle crawl by (no, it doesn’t actually move).
Unfortunately, we visited when it was once again over 100° F outside (David Note: It was 105° F without taking into account humidity), which made it difficult to just walk around and enjoy the sites. The Ghibli Warehouse is air conditioned and nice, but it has timed entry and is only so big. Some of the other popular movies, like Princess Mononoke, lack any sort of meaningful contributions in the park, which is a bit sad. And many of the features that did exist were quite spread out. However, the park only opened in 2022, and appears to have plenty of room for expansion, so I wonder what future developments they have in mind. Similar to the museum in Tokyo, they run the short experimental films in their own theater (David Note: this "film" was an amazing portrayal of a bug's life in japan, with the only sounds being one dude doing grunts, groans, moans, and other gaffs. 10/10), which is also a nice break from walking around and the heat.
If I was taking a trip to Japan and had very limited time, I would likely visit the museum in Mitaka and skip the park, even though the park is amazing. If you only have time for a small side adventure, I feel like the museum has quite a bit of what the warehouse had to offer. If it was an extended trip and you’re truly a Ghibli fan, the park is worth it – but maybe not in the heat of summer or the dead of winter.
7/10 – I love being spirited away into the Japanese countryside, but would really prefer that countryside to not be on fire
We also stopped by Nagoya Castle. The park and grounds were really nice with a cute line of eateries and kakigōri (shaved ice) leading up to the castle. The main castle tower is sadly under construction right now, but the palace at the base of the castle is open. The original building burned to the ground in the mid nineteen hundreds; the current palace is a faithful reconstruction based on a large base of architectural drawings and images saved in Nagoya. The palace is known for it's glittery gold artwork and screens, which are displayed proudly throughout the building. The screens are also recreations and take several years to make, so they're still working on them today! The whole place was very sparkly and cool. The cats were a little chonky and weird, but not too off from early European artistic renditions, if we're being honest.
6/10 – Shiny! | Gleaming with the gold so bright, | Like the kinshachi in the light, | Shiny! (to the tune of Shiny by Jemaine Clement in Moana)
Enjoy the ancient tea house with the modern tea vending machine. We sure did.
Comments