Taryn, I went to VENICE...

The day after we got back from Kyoto, Becky and I decided to go to Venice. We had heard about it at training and were immediately intrigued. We jumped on the subway and went down to Nagoyako (the port area). We emerged into the burning hot sun to find crowds of people! Seriously, there were more people there than in Kyoto. It was weird. After seeing a little kid almost get run over by a car (because her mother forgot about her when crossing the street) we ventured onto the boardwalk area.

It was sweltering and we headed towards Venice. Now Taryn, I know you're thinking, 'what the hell is she talking about?' 'She can't mean VeniceVenice, where I saw a gondola race and was attacked by pigeons?!?'(I seem to remember these stories from your Venice slide show) Oh my friend, I don't mean Venice, Italy....Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Venice, Nagoya, Japan....




That's right. For some reason at Nagoya Port there is an 'Italian Village', which is a replica of Venice, Italy. You can buy Venetian glass, eat pasta and gelato and go on a gondola ride poled (I just looked up the term for rowed a gondola...poled)) by an 'Italian' man (random foreigners hired to look Italian). Now, I thought...hmm..I could go for some Italian food, even if it's Japanese Italian food (often has Japanese elements added, like fish roe, etc). Think we could find a restaurant that didn't have a super long line-up?!?!? We finally gave up and ran away from Venice (there's just something a little creepy about pretending you are in Italy when you are actually in Japan) and ate lunch at Red Lobster near the aquarium.



We still had to wait but it wasn't as busy and the pasta was actually really good (I can't believe I just wrote that, but it's true). After paying for our overpriced pasta we headed to Sakae to meet up with Neil and Tommy. While waiting for Neil outside the subway station, this guy decided to sit down right beside Becky and make himself comfy (I mean com-fy). Tommy decided to chat with him, either ignoring how uncomfortable Becky looked or not noticing or thinking that this conversation was helping. Tommy ended up giving him his cell phone number and made plans to meet him at some club. It was random. Tommy = Mr. Personality.

We had hamburgers at Outback (it was a day of American food) and then headed to a bar Neil and Tommy had found during training week. We hung out there for a while, drinking, chatting and watching Neil and Tommy destroy braincells by drinking something called Spiritus, which has a crazy high alcohol content. The subways in Nagoya shut down shortly after midnight so Becky and I ran for our train and just made the last one back to my apartment.