Nagoya tiki? I found a Moai!

My family is planning a trip to Japan next fall. We will be spending almost a week in the city of Nagoya. I know there is the Trader Vic's in Tokyo, but I probably wont get out there. Does anybody know of any tiki places in Nagoya?

[ Edited by: finkdaddy 2005-09-10 06:25 ]

My wife's from Nagoya, and she's not aware of any tiki there. But there are some "beyond tiki" things you might be interested to visit. In the city, Osu is a fun district to go to, with a lot of vintage
shops, record stores, temples, shrines, funny foods, big paper lanterns, capsule toys, pachinko arcades, yakitori shops etc.

Little World in Inumaya-city is sort of like the EPCOT international pavilions. They have small examples of architecture from around the world, including some "exotic" architecture. Houses from Samoa, Indonesia, and probably some other interesting stuff. I haven't been there though, and it might not be worth the admission. You can eat foods from around the world as well like EPCOT, including spam burgers! Apparently sometimes they have special events too. The following are in Japanese only, but you might see some pics if you click around on the text links.
http://www.meitetsu.co.jp/little/index.html
http://www.meitetsu.co.jp/little/info/operation_t.html
http://www.meitetsu.co.jp/little/info/operation_t.html

But here's the one I really recommend. It's a little outside of Nagoya in Gamagori City, and it's called the Fantasy-Kan. Hard to describe, but it's a "fantasy museum" with lavish dioramas of an underwater world, where everything is made from thousands and thousands of seashells. The Fantasy-Kan is in the book Roadside Japan. We visited this place, and the museum part was closed, but just the cafeteria/restaurant alone was worth the trip - truly breathtaking. If you want more of a preview, I might be able to post some of my pics from there, but here's a link to a website (again in Japanese).
http://www.h6.dion.ne.jp/~aqhunter/fantasy.htm

-Randy

Aquarj-

Thanks for the info! My wife lived in Nagoya for three years when she worked at the university. She said she had been to some of the places you mentioned, but I really would like to see the Fantasy-Kan like you said.

Is your wife japanese or was she from a transplanted american family?

Hey finkdaddy -
Yes, my wife is Japanese-Japanese. I've only been to Japan once, but looking forward to going back. I'd love to post some pics of the Fantasy-Kan, but it's going to have to be a little later than this week!

Also discussed elsewhere, but if you do make it to Tokyo or Yokohama, the Tiki Tiki is a fun place to visit. And in the base of Tokyo Tower is perhaps the worst wax museum in the world! I can't explain why, but I took great pleasure in the terribly rendered Julia Roberts. Given all the wax food displays in Japanese restaurants, you'd think the country would have many wax rendering masters.

-Randy

I just wanted to bump this one up since we will be leaving for Nagoya this Monday morning! We'll be there a full 7 days. Sadly, we wont be able to travel very much around the country, so I just wanted to ask again if anybody knew of any tiki that might be there. Mahalo!

I didn't find any real tiki places in Nagoya. But there was a really cool restaurant I found downtown (I'll post the name as soon as I remember it) that would have been a great tiki place if there had only been even one tiki. It was all dark lit with bamboo and jungle art everywhere. The food was fabulous Asian/Vietnamese and they had a pretty long cocktail list. I had some kind of passion fruit thing which was delicious but not very strong.

I did find this Moai at Nagoya Harbor:

I tried a Mai Tai at a place called Kitty's Garden (or something like that) at the harbor and I'm pretty sure it was just Bacardi and pineapple juice. Very uninspiring.

It was a great trip though, I can't wait to go again!