Autumn 2025. We – Sam and Danny, Michel and Wille, and Timothy – are travelling to Japan for a quite classic tour of the Land of the Rising Sun. We are flying separately as we used miles. On the planning: Tokyo, Kanazawa, Shirakawa, Osaka, and Expo 2025, Hiroshima, Himeji, Miyajima, Kyoto, Nara, Nagoya, Hakone, and back to Tokyo. Three weeks plus some extra days.

When took an Aonami Line train from Nagoya Station to Kinjō-futō Station, we noticed signs in Portuguese. And that’s peculiar. 

The link between Nagoya and the Portuguese language has both deep historical roots and strong modern-day connections. It reaches back to the sixteenth century, when Portuguese explorers and missionaries became the first Europeans to arrive in Japan. 

In 1543, a ship from Portugal landed on Tanegashima Island, introducing firearms, Christianity, and Western knowledge to Japan. Over the following decades, Portuguese traders and Jesuit priests established missions and commercial networks, particularly in the port cities of Kyushu such as Nagasaki and Hirado. 

Although Nagoya, then part of the Owari domain, was not a direct centre of this activity, the influence of Portuguese contact spread across the country through trade, religion, and technology.

One of the most lasting results of this early contact was linguistic. Portuguese became Japan’s first Western language of exchange, and dozens of Portuguese words were adopted into Japanese, many of which are still in use today. 

Everyday terms such as pan (bread), botan (button), koppu (cup), tabako (tobacco), and tempura (from tempero) trace their origins to Portuguese. Jesuit missionaries also introduced printing with movable type and produced early Romanised Japanese texts, creating the first systematic bridge between the Japanese and Latin alphabets. 

Though this early period of contact ended when Japan closed itself to most foreign influence in the seventeenth century, the Portuguese contribution to Japan’s language and culture endured.

Brazil

In the modern era, the relationship between Nagoya and Portuguese has taken a very different form. 

Since the late 1980s, Nagoya and the surrounding Aichi Prefecture have become home to one of Japan’s largest Brazilian-Japanese communities. 

When Japan’s government revised immigration laws to allow ethnic Japanese from Brazil, Peru, and other South American countries to live and work in Japan, thousands of families relocated to industrial regions such as Aichi, home to manufacturing giants like Toyota and JR Central. This movement created a substantial population of Portuguese speakers, as Portuguese is the national language of Brazil.

Today, Portuguese is one of the most widely spoken foreign languages in Aichi Prefecture. Signs, public information, and government documents in Nagoya are frequently available in Portuguese, and the language is heard daily in local shops, restaurants, churches, and schools. 

Catholic churches in the region hold services in Portuguese, community radio programmes broadcast for the Brazilian population, and several local businesses cater specifically to Lusophone residents. 

This demographic reality explains why Portuguese is included among the audio guide languages at places like the SCMaglev and Railway Park, alongside English, Chinese, and other major languages. The museum’s accessibility policies reflect the presence of a large Portuguese-speaking community in the region, rather than purely catering to international tourists.

Cultural ties continue to grow through events such as Nagoya’s Brazilian festivals and samba parades, which celebrate the shared identity of Japanese and Brazilian residents. Over the years, a hybrid form of communication known as ‘Dekasegi Portuguese‘ has also developed, blending Portuguese and Japanese vocabulary and expressions in daily life.

The connection between Nagoya and Portuguese, therefore, is both historical and contemporary. It begins with the first encounters between Japan and Portugal nearly five centuries ago and finds new life in the vibrant Lusophone communities that now form an integral part of Nagoya’s social and cultural fabric.

A Brazilian restaurant?

We were ion the lookout for a Brazilian restaurant or a a Brazilian-Japanese restaurant, but didn’t find one (that was open). There were more deli options though. Peruvian-Japanese fusion, aka Nikkei cuisine, is not uncommon in the West, so we were looking for an Brazilian-Japanese equivalent. 

2025 Journey Across Japan

1. Japan’s Superconducting Maglev train breaks world speed record at 603 km/h.
2. Japan’s maglev bullet train delayed to 2035 or later as costs rise to ¥11 trillion.
3. QUESTION | Should you be stressed about travelling to Japan, and fear of missing out?.
4. Brussels Airport to Milan Malpensa with Brussels Airlines, operated by Air Baltic, ft. the 2025 check-in and boarding software hack.
5. REVIEW | Sala Montale Exclusive Lounge and Sala Gae Aulentin Premium Lounge at Milan Malpensa Airport, extra Schengen.
6. REVIEW | All Nippon Airways (ANA), Business Class, Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner to Tokyo.
7. REVIEW | Toei Animation Museum in Nerima, Tokyo.
8. JAPAN | Tokyo Station, its Character Street and Pokémon Store.
9. REVIEW | Onyado Nono Asakusa Hotel in Tokyo.
10. TOKYO | Asakusa ft. Sensō-ji Temple.
11. JAPAN | The Odoriko train from Tokyo to Ito on Izu Peninsula.
12. PHOTOS & REVIEW | The Izu Teddy Bear Museum in Izu-Kōgen.
13. JAPAN | A visit to Ito on Izu Peninsula in Shizuoka Prefecture.
14. REVIEW | Japan’s Saphir Odoriko in Premium Green Car from Ito on Izu Peninsula to Tokyo Station.
15. GAY TOKYO | 24 Kaikan in Asakusa (+ Ueno and Shinjuku).
16. TOKYO | Sawara in Chiba Prefecture, ‘Little Edo’ beyond Narita.
17. TOKYO | Omotesandō in Shibuya – AEON Shinonome –  Uniqlo – Muji.
18. PHOTOS | The Edo-Tokyo Open Air Architectural Museum in Koganei Park.
19. JAPAN | Solo in Tokyo.
20. REVIEW | Brussels Airport The View lounge.
21. REVIEW | Qatar Airways Business Class Brussels to Doha.
22. REVIEW | Qatar Airways Al Mourjan The Garden Business lounge.
23. REVIEW | Qatar Airways Q-Suite Business Class Doha to Tokyo.
24. REVIEW | Pullman Tokyo Tamachi.
25. REVIEW | The Railway Museum, Ōmiya, Saitama City, Saitama Prefecture.
26. TOKYO | Imperial Palace East Gardens – Akihabara – Tamiya flagship store – Skytree.
27. JAPAN | Kanazawa Castle – Kenrokuen Garden – Higashi Chaya District.
28. REVIEW | Daiwa Roynet Hotel Kanazawa Eki Nishiguchi.
29. JAPAN | Road trip to Hida no Sato, Takayama and Shirakawa-go from Kanazawa.
30. OSAKA | Namba Parks – Dōtonbori – Glico Man – Shinsaibashi.
31. REVIEW | Swissôtel Nankai Osaka.
32. Experiencing Expo 2025 Osaka Kansai Japan.
33. KANSAI | Osaka Castle ft. Toyotomi Stone Wall Museum.
34. OSAKA | EGDE store – Umeda Sky Building – Grand Front – Namba Parks – Daiso – Luscious.
35. REVIEW | Mazda Museum in Hiroshima.
36. REVIEW | Candeo Hotels Hiroshima Hatchobori.
37. JAPAN | The Hiroshima Peace Memorial, the Peace Memorial Park and the Peace Memorial Museum.
38. JAPAN | Himeji Castle.
39. JAPAN | Itsukushima Shrine on Itsukushima aka Miyajima.
40. REVIEW | Miyajima Seaside Hotel.
41. REVIEW | Spending a night in a couples’ or love hotel: ホテルCOO玖 男塾ホテルグループ in Okayama.
42. KYOTO | Nishi Hongan-ji Temple.
43. KYOTO | Nijō Castle.
44. KYOTO | Kamo River – Takase River – Pontochō.
45. REVIEW | Mercure Kyoto Station.
46. REVIEW | Kyoto Railway Museum.
47. JAPAN | Kyoto Station.
48. REVIEW | Nintendo Museum in Uji, Kyoto Prefecture.
49. JAPAN | Nara with its sika deer, and Tōdai-ji with the Great Buddha.
50. KYOTO | The Eizan Electric Railway or Eiden Line, at the foot of Mount Hiei.
51. REVIEW | SCMaglev and Railway Park in Nagoya.