We took the Osaka loop line to Osaka station, then the Kyoto JR line to Shin-Osaka (this is where the long distance trains leave from), where we got tickets on the Hikari Shinkansen to Nagoya, leaving at 12:16 and arriving at 13:25. The journey was free with out JR passes (for more information about the JR pass, I’ve written a whole post about how to get them).

We then bought delicious train bentos to eat on the train. Mine had lots of delicious vegetables! I helped a man use the weird space toilet that was a cylinder with a sliding door.

We arrived in Nagoya around 1:30pm and walked to our hostel. The walk took about 30 minutes. There was a wild street festival going on. We saw a parade pf people wearing the traditional festival clothes and playing drums. The main covered street were our hostel was, was lined with vendors selling snacks and alcohol.

We finally found our hostel, apparently the name had changed, and due to all the chaos on the street it was a bit tricky to navigate! They allowed us to check in early at about 2:30pm. The restaurant that was owned by the hostel was packed! We checked in and walked a block to the actual hostel. The beds were in little pods, sort of like a capsule hotel. We then went back to the restaurant to get our complimentary drink!!

We then took the metro to Super Potato (a retro game store). We got the weekend metro pass for 600 Yen .

First we stopped at Mandarake the art book/ used nerdy goods store!! I got a retro wind-up cat bus toy from Totoro for 800 Yen ( which Beth received as a souvenir). Jives got an art book.

Then we headed to Super Potato! The store was crazy! There were two levels of floor to ceiling video games, consoles, merchandise..etc.

I got 2 Ranma 1/2 games for 420 Yen, and Jives got Poyo Poyo, a Bomber man game (4 games total). We then headed back to our hostel to drop off our purchases and head to the Ruby Room to try and play the Plastic Factory’s open mic show.

There was a 1000 Yen cover charge to get into the Ruby Room, but it came with a free drink. We stuck around for one act, then popped next door for some food at a ramen place. It was an adorable little Ramen restaurant with two long counters and very yellow lighting. The lady running it was adorable! We then headed back to the open mic and watched some more acts. We met quite a few of the people there and saw a large variety of performances, but by 11:15pm Jives hadn’t had a chance to play yet, and most of the crowd had left. We decided to leave in order to catch the last metro back to our hostel. I felt really bad that Jives didn’t get to play. He seemed really sad about it as we headed back to the hostel. This open mic was the whole reason we had decided to stay in Nagoya on this trip.