⭕ Circle Line 名古屋

April 25th 2025年4月25日

As you can see below, the city of Nagoya has a very convenient circular metro line. Easy-peasy. Like in Tokyo or London, it's the line for lost tourists. It has a clockwise service, and an anti-clockwise service (called the counter-clockwise service in American).

Wow, this is easy I thought, and hopped on. Ah no, Nigel. Just to keep tourists alert, the line sometimes branches off....and of course that's what happened to me. I branched off. To the port of Nagoya. It wasn't painful, and I did get there in the end. The end being a famous Shinto shrine called Atsuta Jingu (at about 7 o'clock on that purple line). Now there will be no carry-on there, understand?

Bad translations here are a constant form of amusement (or irritation) for me. I was using Nagoya as a convenient jumping off point for the Nakasendo, an old 18thc. highway that runs through the mountains.

But before going into the mountains there was time for sightseeing and a concert. I had picked up the Karlsruhe Musikhochschule link and was going to hear Maine Takeda (soprano) sing in the Aichi Arts Centre. Three other prizewinners were also performing.

As I approached the ticket desk and gave my name, a certain ripple of worry seem to flit across the face of the elderly man in charge. But the moment was saved by the stage manager, who recognised my name and led me up personally to my seat (not before he had primed the seat attendant to look after me....). So it was that I was able to sit back and enjoy Maine-san sing two songs from Mahler's Das Knaben Wunderhorn; Handel's "Lascia ch'io pianga"; an aria from The Marriage of Figaro "Deh, vieni, non tarda" and "Nun eilt herbei" from Carl Nicolai. Very enjoyable. And, as is so often the case in Japan, in a smart new concert hall with excellent acoustics.

Emerging from the concert hall, I meet Nagoya gleaming in the night......

.....and discover the Sakae area the next day.......

As it's pretty flat, lots of people use bikes here. And there are handy bike lock zones - this one outside the NHK broadcasting house......

This how you do it.....easy when you know how.....😉

Nagoya is the home of many of Japan's big names - Toyota and Kawai to name just two. But I am neither going to buy a car nor a piano. No, not even this one.....

I had a tip to follow - to that 7 o'clock on the metro map. Quite a trek to get there, but Nagoya is big.

The Atsuta shrine is one of Shinto's most important shrines. And it's huge. Big enough to warrant it's own metro station....

It enshrines the Sun Goddess Amaterasu and stores the sacred sword Kusanagi - part of the imperial regalia. So in I tread with awe, bowing my head and clapping once under the huge Tori gate.

The vast complex of shrines are set in a thickly wooded park, so I often have to refer to the maps to orientate myself. The atmosphere is calm, the weather benign. Young couples wander hand in hand; a mother guides her little girl along. The child is more interested in making patterns in the gravel than paying obeisance to the gods. Understandable. A group of middle-aged women chatter away from under their sun hats. It's a Sunday afternoon stroll after all, gods and all. Cameras are clicking 📷.....

And however secular society may seem in Japan, Shintoism (and Buddhism) sits naturally in daily life. There is no fuss about it. No hang ups. At the shrine office (Juyo-sho) it is obvious what is on offer here - an ideal wedding venue.

It costs of course, but every young couple want the perfect photo-op don't they?

I'm not expecting to actually see anything at the shrine. There will be a set of closed doors and that's it. But that's not the point. You can't see gods anyway, and it's up to you how you manage them.

It's advisable to have time when you come to a place like this. None of that "be back at the coach in 1 hour" business. Oh no. I turned left and right in the shady woods, never knowing what to expect.......although I was aware of a restaurant behind the trees. What is this dish they are serving? Let's try it.....

OMG. Serious now. I cannot remember when I tasted such a delicious meal.....it's called Kishimen, the kanji translating as something like "Go stone noodle" (the noodle used to be shaped like the stone in the game Go).These thick flat noodles seem to catch the flavour of the soup and...well...I think the gods were smiling down at me.....

Thoroughly revived by this simple but intensely satisfying meal, I sat on a bench and took in the scene.......

That's what these gardens are for. For slowing down and contemplating. Under Shintoism, everything has a spiritual dimension: the rocks, the trees, even the cars.....

This old camphor tree has the Shimenawa (rope) wrapped around it for ritual purification, and is decorated with Shide (paper streamers) to demarcate it as a holy place and to ward off evil spirits.....

What a tree!

Some of the trees here look as if they could have inspired Hayao Miyazaki for one of his Ghibli films....https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hayao_Miyazaki

Around one corner the chief priest had parked his car (well, he probably had it parked by his driver).....hmmm....Well, we are in Toyota's homeland here. In fact I would not be surprised if the car was donated by the company. A goodwill offering if you like.

An architectural curiosity here...heavy stone slabs have been used to support (?) or relay (?) the downward thrust of this hall's roof....

Before I left I noticed these Sake barrels.........

and a nice piece of modern craftmanship on the door of a smaller shrine...

Even today, the Japanese entrust their prayers for health, love or good exam results to small ema (votive plaques). This an old one which I saw in the Yokohama Museum...a wish for good breastfeeding....the gods are represented by a small cloud.....