Today we chilled, we've had a few busy days and we were on the move so we decided to stay at the ryokan as late at we could (check out time was 12) before heading out of Osaka. We had a great time there and I hope we get an opportunity to come back again one day.
Our plan for the day was to head to Nagoya which is only and hour forty five away from Osaka (which we could have done in a day trip) but tomorrow we are heading for Nikko so we decided to have Nagoya as a stop along the way (so instead of a 6+hour trip we will only have a 4 hour one) and yep one more thing to knock off that list.
Our hotel for the night is Kiyoshi Nagoya no 1, just a small clean hotel that does the trick, and seems very quiet even though it is right next to an expressway and you wouldn't notice it, I think the road outside my house is noisier sometimes.
Nagoya seems a lot more quiet and relaxed than Tokyo and Osaka but I can't make a true judgement on it because we were only here for the afternoon and evening and it's a Saturday, with no business people rushing to and from work.
We wandered past the city hall which was quite impressive, but on a weekend was not exactly teeming with life,
The main reason for us stopping was to explore Nagoya Castle which was built in the Edo period for one of the Tokugawa family and is one of Japan's largest castles.
The castle was destroyed back in WW2 , but was rebuilt after the war, finally finishing the rebuilding in 1959.
We paid Y500 entry fee to see inside the castle (because we missed out on Himeji and didn't do Osaka this time)
so I didn't want to just wander the castle grounds this time. I am glad we paid to see inside even though the castle is undergoing renovations which will be done in various stages, and are not set to finish until late 2022.
I guess we were lucky that we got to see anything at all as some of the castle is going to be demolished before it is rebuilt again, and I would have been a little annoyed if we had missed out on seeing the castle as it had been on my to-do list, and it has been done.
There were some food stalls outside the castle grounds and we ate here, although oddly for us we didn't take photos, but the food was tasty and cheap and gave us an opportunity to linger a bit longer around the grounds and enjoy the evening.
We made our way back to the hotel, stopping for some snacks at the 7-11 on the corner and are planning on a night in front of the TV again before an early start in the morning.
It's going to be a long day today and I am glad that today we spent just chillin'.