| THIS AREA should offer you anything you need or want for everyday living during your stay in Nagoya because the apartment and school are located within the actual city. Area maps are here. AROUND THE NEIGHBORHOOD: Alta Video store is two minutes away on foot. The average rental is 280 yen for a week, unless they're new releases. You can rent DVDs, tapes and CDs. Western movies are released in Japanese theaters and usually become available for rent about 3 months later. Yamanaka is your nicest and nearest supermarket. It's less than 5 minutes away on foot. It has quality products and a reasonable number of Western foods. It has a bakery, and a section to buy Japanese sweets & other traditional foods. A sewing shop and a novelty-goods shop can also be found here. If you get a craving for a burger, there's a McDonald's there, too. In addition, the building has small-ish clothing shops on the 2nd floor. Right outside the store there's a photo booth, in case you need/want photos for anything (passport, visa, etc.). The nearest post office is about 1 block away. Its ATM is available only until 5 p.m. on weekdays. Within 5 minutes' walk, there are also a bicycle shop; a men's clothing store; an animal clinic; pharmacy/drug store; and health clinic, as well as a second grocery store: Daitomi, (a bit cheaper than Yamanaka with some items but doesn't have its quality or selection.). There are izakayas (neighborhood bars), ramen shops, traditional Japanese restaurants, a surprising number of upscale restaurants, karaoke, and even a French bistro (Chocolat). ________________________________ TO THE EAST within 20 mins. on foot (under 10 by bike): Kentucky Fried Chicken; Book-Off, a second-hand books & CD/DVD store; Apita, a 4-floor shopping center with a United Colors of Benetton, the biggest Muji (a sort of Japanese version of Ikea-meets-Target) I've seen in Nagoya, several restaurants, and a grocery store; 2 convenience stores (Circle K and FamilyMart) and a 99-cent shop; and a Pizza Station. ________________________________ TO THE WEST within 15 mins. on foot (under 12 by bike): 99-cent shop, a FamilyMart, and Lawson's and convenience stores; another large grocery store; a drug store; countless family-owned restaurants; and Meijo Park, which has a nice pond and walking trails. ________________________________ On or near THE ROUTE TO SCHOOL: a Yamachan, which is a regional chain restaurant well-known in the area for chicken wings, as well as several family-owned restaurants; a B&D, which is a drug store with a nice selection of home and personal-care products, cheap household items; and some snacks; a 100-yen shop that has one of the best selections of household items and small office supplies I've come across; a Fuji photo center; a foreign-food store; a slew of convenience stores; Heiwa Park (one of the biggest ones in the city, which also has a cemetery.) ________________________________ FROM SCHOOL TO THE NEAREST SUBWAY STATION (Issha): a grocery store (cheap); a park; a bank; a post office; a few small clothing shops and restaurants; upscale, brand-name shopping center; a Mos Burger, which is the higher-end Japanese response to Western burgers; and a McDonald's ________________________________ Around downtown, in the SAKAE AREA: In addition to the expected clothing, drink, and food shops: Outback Steakhouse and Subway (sandwich shop); a FedEx/Kinko's copy center; Internet cafes; Tokyu Hands dept. store where you can get practically anything; Loft clothing/department store; Parco clothing store; HMV--some floors are specialty-clothing; 3rd and 4th floors have music & video; Maruzen bookstore--3rd floor houses books in English; a large post office; Medi-ya foreign food store (**But the neighborhood Yamanaka tends to sell the same items for less); Matzusakaya dept. store that also hosts exhibits on one of its top floors. ________________________________ In the AREA AROUND NAGOYA STATION, you'll find: another Tokyu Hands; an extensive network of underground shops, dealing in everything from clothing to train tickets; and foreign pop-culture trinkets to top-quality Japanese sweets and tea and an air-conditioned passageway to the Nagoya International Center. Incidentally, the center offers fairly inexpensive Japanese-language classes and a few other services for foreigners. **This is all a very brief overview of the area, to give you a rough idea of what it's like. The list is in no way comprehensive. |
| If you're average height and weight and are not a terribly finicky eater, you should have no problems. And contrary to what you might have heard or read, you CAN in fact find toothpaste with fluoride in Japan. To give you an idea, stores within a 10-minute bike ride from the apartment also stock: fresh celery; frozen tortillas; Chips Ahoy cookies; naan; wines from around the world; bleu cheese; German sausages; contact fluid and plenty of other readily-recognizable non-Japanese goods. |
| GO TO: |
| The apartment. Transportation. |
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