What should I avoid in Nagoya?

Nagoya Castle's main tower has been closed since May 2018 for a full wooden reconstruction. The 1959 concrete replica was the city's most-visited landmark, but right now you'll walk through the gates, see the Honmaru Palace (completed June 2018, and worth the ¥500 entry), and stare at a fenced-off construction site where the tower should be. The rebuild has no firm completion date. Don't plan your day around climbing the keep. Legoland Japan Resort in Minato ward targets children aged 2 to 12. If you're traveling without kids, you'll pay upward of ¥5,000 for a park where most rides have height restrictions below 130cm, and the food court serves ¥1,200 hot dogs. Families with children under 8 will probably get a solid half-day from it. Adults who want thrill rides should head to Nagashima Spa Land instead, where Steel Dragon 2000 runs 2,479 meters of track at 153 km/h.

Nagoya's signature dish, hitsumabushi (grilled eel over rice), runs ¥3,500 to ¥5,500 at the sit-down places that do it right. The trap is eating it at one of the chain restaurants inside JR Nagoya Station's underground floors, where the wait hits 45 minutes and the portions are smaller. Atsuta Houraiken near Atsuta Shrine has served hitsumabushi since 1873. The wait there can reach 90 minutes on weekends, but the crispy-skinned eel, still smoking from the charcoal, tastes nothing like the station versions. Go at 11am on a weekday and you might sit within 20 minutes. The other common mistake is ordering miso katsu at tourist-facing restaurants in Osu that drown the pork in a thick, cloying sauce. Yabaton in Osu has been doing it since 1947 and keeps the hatcho miso glaze thin enough that you still taste the panko crunch beneath it.

Sakae's Nishiki 3-chome strip fills with touts after 9pm, mostly on Friday and Saturday nights. They approach solo travelers and foreign visitors with menus showing ¥500 drinks, but the bill arrives with a ¥3,000 to ¥5,000 table charge and a service fee that triples the total. This is legal in Japan. The charge is usually printed in Japanese on a separate card you won't see until checkout. Stick to bars you find yourself in the Sumiyoshi and Nishiki 2-chome blocks south of Hisaya Odori Park, where the cover charge, if any, is posted at the door. Nagoya scores 8.5/10 for solo-traveler safety (see the TTDI Solo-Safety Index). That said, the blocks around Nagoya Station's west exit along Taikou-dori get rougher after midnight, with more aggressive touts and occasional street disputes. Stick to the east side of the station or grab a taxi from the Sakae rank if you're out late.

Nagoya sits in a basin, and from mid-June through September the humidity rarely drops below 70%. Today's reading is 26°C with 72% humidity, a felt temperature of 29.5°C. That's a mild late-September afternoon. In July and August, afternoon temperatures reach 37°C with humidity above 80%, producing a heat index past 42°C. The concrete around Nagoya Station radiates stored heat well past sunset. Carry a hand towel (every convenience store sells them for ¥200) and duck into the underground shopping corridors beneath Sakae and Meieki when the midday sun peaks. Typhoon season runs August through October. A direct hit on the city is uncommon, maybe one significant storm every 3 to 4 years, but when one tracks through Ise Bay the trains shut down 3 to 6 hours before landfall. JR Central posts suspension notices on its English site. The rainy season, tsuyu, from early June to mid-July brings 10 to 15 consecutive days of warm drizzle that makes outdoor sightseeing at the castle grounds and Atsuta Shrine slippery and uncomfortable.