Nagoya Day 2

On to our 2nd exciting day! 🙂 Getting lost, lol! Our trip wasn’t as romantic & as sugar-laden as I thought it would be. There were moments na nagsusungitan kami ni Kap because of google maps. :))

He would insist na alam na nya, yun pala maling direksyon ang tinatahak namin. That’s my pet peeve pa naman, yung pagkahaba-habang lakaran tapos sa lost & found pala kami pupulutin, hay!

My lower back & hip joints always hurt when walking long distance, so the less lakad during the early part of the day, the better I can preserve my energy & the longer I can delay the pain. So I took it upon myself to learn the app. And I found out that if we use LIVE VIEW, we can totally disregard the confusing dancing arrow! \m/

Our itinerary for Day 2 was Osu Shopping District. If you haven’t been to Nagoya, Osu is a whole day affair! Walk-walk-walk the whole day yan. There are over 1,200 various shops and restaurants spanning 1,700 square meters, mantakin mo? Halo-halong tindahan. Hindi sya contained like food in one area & retail in another. All kinds of shops, including electrical appliance, secondhand clothing, restaurants, and cafes are mixed together along several streets, kaya buong araw mo, kulang if you will really check out every nook & cranny.

We have determined that this trip is solely for eating. Maybe konting shopping for Japanese snacks & knick knacks as pasalubong, but that’s it. No major purchases kasi we are going to Osaka again with the kids in July, and a girls trip in Fukuoka naman sa November. So we have to carefully budget our money lest maubos agad ang kokonting savings! @_@

Medyo maaga kaming nakadating sa Osu, excited much! ;P Apparently, shops there open at around 11am pa, buti nalang there were some small eateries nearby na bukas ng maaga-aga, so doon muna kami tumambay while we reviewed our game plan in detail..

To save on time at makarami-rami, we skipped the many retail shops & checked out the food stalls for konting tikim-tikim. Napansin ko lang, may pagka-sungit ang mga shop owners. You’re not allowed on their benches unless you buy food from them AND PAY EXTRA to sit. If you don’t want to pay extra for seats, then you have to choose “take out” & eat your food standing, or elsewhere. For short, hindi sila upuan-friendly! #hellovaricose

Also within the Shopping District is the Osu Kannon Temple if you’re into that. We’re not buddhists, so we didn’t go inside anymore & just took some selfies outside. The temple’s name comes from its main object of worship, a wooden statue of Kannon, the goddess of mercy.

Only halfway through, we found ourselves getting super tired na, so Kap decided we should just head back to our hotel & get some rest muna since we started our day really early.

After an hour of recharging (phone & wifi batteries included), we were ready to continue with our day of misadventures & decided to go back to Hisaya-odori Park across Mirai Tower (kasi memorize na namin ang papunta dun, lol!)

While Kap checked out RL & Lacoste (AGAIN!! – akala nya siguro bababa na ang presyo pagkalipas ng 1 araw), I plopped myself at the first coffee shop I saw – which happened to be Ralph’s Coffee (by Ralph Lauren) & gave him my blessing to shop, basta iwan lang ako kasi suko na ang bandera!

While in Hisaya-odori Park (across Mirai Tower), don’t forget to check out Peanuts Cafe.

I am SO SO sad I missed this huhu. I hope that when we go to Osaka again in July, I’ll be able to finally set foot & have coffee there. :'(

On our way to dinner, we passed by GU & decided to buy some pasalubong for our angels back home. GU is the more affordable brand by the same makers of Uniqlo.

Nagoya is famous for its Eels delicacy, more particularly, the 4-step HITSUMABUSHI, where you divide your serving of eel into 4 parts & eaten in 4 different ways.