Lets Tour

Nagoya has a deep and dark secret… Well a deep, but pretty well-lit secret, actually. Did you know that it is home to Japan’s oldest underground pedestrian passageway and shopping mall network? Underground shopping malls, or 地下街 (chikagai), are pretty common in the larger urban cities in Japan.  They can provide a dry, comfortable, climate-controlled place for pedestrians to congregate and shop barrier-free without worrying about traffic, rain, winter snow, and summer heat. Nagoya is home to several subterranean spaces that span many areas around the Nagoya Station and Sakae/TV Tower area. When used in combination, it’s very possible to spend hours underground. How it started: Sun Road Back in the late 1950s, Nagoya was in the midst of a two-pronged building boom in the aftermath of World War II. The population was swelling due to new factories and offices being opened as Japan’s economy was radically industrialized, and Nagoya was becoming a hub for production. The JR and Meitetsu railroads served the area from the suburbs in a north-south fashion, and Nagoya needed an east-west rail line. The City of Nagoya Department of Transportation built the Higashiyama subway line’s initial segment between Nagoya station and Sakae in response to…