Japan's industrial heartland and secret food capital — where Nagoya Castle's golden shachi (mythical dolphins) have guarded the city since 1615, Toyota's corporate headquarters and the Toyota Commemorative Museum explain how an automatic loom became the most valuable car company in the world, the Nagoya food dialect (hatcho miso, miso katsu, tebasaki, hitsumabushi) is so distinct that Nagoya locals talk of 'Nagoya cuisine' as a separate culinary tradition, and Osu Shopping Street is the most entertaining covered shopping arcade in Japan
Nagoya (2.3 million; metro 9.5 million Chukyo metropolitan area) is the capital of Aichi Prefecture and Japan's fourth-largest city — the industrial capital of Japan, producing 60% of the country's motor vehicles (Toyota), aircraft components (Mitsubishi, Subaru), ceramics, textiles, and robotics in the Aichi-Mie corridor. Nagoya is often skipped by first-time Japan visitors rushing between Tokyo and Kyoto/Osaka on the Shinkansen (Nagoya is only 50 minutes from both), but the city rewards the traveller who stops: the castle is one of the finest original (non-reconstructed) castle complexes in…
The Owari domain (of which Nagoya was the castle town) was the birthplace of three of the men who unified Japan: Oda Nobunaga (born Nagoya Castle's predecessor, Omi Village, 1534 — the first of Japan's three great unifiers), Toyotomi Hideyoshi (born Nakamura ward, Nagoya, 1537 — the second), and Tokugawa Ieyasu (born Okazaki, 30 km south, 1543 — the third and final, founder of the Edo shogunate). Nagoya Castle was built between 1610 and 1615 by Tokugawa Ieyasu as the seat of the Owari Tokugawa clan — the golden shachihoko (mythical orca-fish hybrids) on the roof towers, cast in solid gold (we…