Nagasaki

Dear all,

Don't be scared, not all my posts are going to be this long. This is a compilation of my first two days in Nagasaki :)

here it goes:

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Nagasaki 1

We’ve arrived in Nagasaki! Getting here really was no problem at all. We just caught the subway to Hakata station (the shinkansen stop we got off at) and then caught a JR (Japan Rail) express train to Nagasaki JR station, taking us right into the middle of Nagasaki. The first thing we saw was a mountain. Well, a really BIG hill. And somewhere on top of that hill is our university. GREAT. Haha. The next thing we noticed were the trolley-busses. I hadn’t seen those yet in Japan. Also, it’s really hot here, it’s a lot warmer than in Fukuoka. All in all Fukuoka seemed a lot more appealing to all of us, but Nagasaki it is.

When you walk out of the station you walk straight into a huge, chaotic junction. It’s busy as hell and just crazy. There are walk ways on bridges over the junction. So it’s up and down stairs for us, thank goodness for the elevators (considering we had huge huge huge suitcases with us). We’re staying at the Nagasaki Guest House, a little business hotel (there was no more space in the youth hostel we had made our reservation with – the guest house is run by the same family though). I don’t know if it’s any better though. It’s… bare. The room I’m sharing with Claudia here is bigger than the one in Fukuoka, but unlike there, there isn’t a phone or even a water boiler to make a cup of tea. Also, when we opened the curtains to look at our ‘sea view’ all we saw was a brick wall. The basics are there though: reasonably comfortable bed, shower, toothbrush, razor. Oh and a desk with a nice book left for us to read “ Are you experienced?”. I don’t even want to know what that is about.

Actually, when we were at the station trying to figure out which way to go to get to our hotel we ran into two guys from Leiden! They had travelled via Hong Kong and they just happened to have arrived at the same time in Nagasaki. That was really weird. Now there’s only 3 people still missing from our group!

After having dragged our things to the hostel we went back to the station and met up with everyone. We went to the nearest ‘mall’ and had a good look around the shops there. There’s a GAP! Haha. None of the girls clothes fit. Well, the large just about fits, but sizes are tiny. We found ANOTHER Vans heaven for Luuk and Thijs (seriously! And in normal sizes too! Well, I saw a size 42 (European size) and a box for an even bigger size, so it’s all possible. I also spotted a schoolgirl in her uniform wearing a pair of Vans (but she wasn’t hot so don’t go fantasising now!). There was also an arcade where the guys spent most of their time while Claudia and I hunted for a shoulder bag for her.

After wearing ourselves out going up and down this building we had dinner at the Royal Host. When I first moved to Japan the first meal I had there was at a Royal Host, so it seemed befitting to have our first meal in Nagasaki at a Royal Host aswell (though it was mostly because some of us were dying for some ‘western’ food and others still wanted Japanese food, so Royal Host was a good choice ánd it was nearby). I had corn soup, the yummiest soup in Japan, not available in europe, and as main course a hamburger (Japanese version that is).

Now I’m back at the hotel room. There’s a computer in the lobby that we can use for internet, but you’re only allowed 15 minutes at a time. The others went out but I wasn’t feeling that well so I decided to have a go. 15 minutes is no where near enough! (especially if certain people happen to be ‘away’ right at that very moment. It’s not enough to write an entry, and I couldn’t really find a usb thingy for my memory card. So this might not reach you straight away as we haven’t found an illegal network yet ;).

I’m starting to feel a little bit homesick, especially because of the lack of contact at the moment. I hope that things will be a bit better once I have my own internet connection in the dorms, so I can chat and cam when I want to on my own little laptop. Because right now I’m not liking Nagasaki. Tomorrow however we’re going to Urakami, another part of Nagasaki that’s supposed to be quieter. It’s in fact where the hypocentre of the atomic bomb was. There’s even a marker where the bomb landed exactly. We might go and take a look at that, and go to the memorial museum, peace park etc. I’ve had enough of looking around shops and arcades for now you see, and we still have a few days to fill before we get sucked into uni life again.

I’ll let you know how it was! For now good night (or in your case good afternoon: 20:53 JP time; 13:53 NL time) and speak to you soon!

Love, Jenn

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Nagasaki part 2

I bought a camera!! Yayy Yamada-denki daisuki! So today I first of all overslept, but that wasn’t so bad as I probably needed the sleep. Anyway, we decided to do something slightly more intelligent today, so we went to Urakami, the train station before Nagasaki city itself. In Urakami you have the Peace Park, Peace Memorial, and Atomic Bomb Museum. We first went to the park, got all hot and bothered and then went to the nicely air-conditioned museum. I’ve been to the one in Hiroshima as well, and I have to say that it’s still quite impressive. You get to read a lot about the circumstance of the time (not much about Japan I must say – nothing about the general war situation, just the days before the bombs, but still…) and then you get the gory pictures and testimonials. But impressive none the less! We tried to locate our dorm which should be somewhere in that area, but didn’t quite find it. We do know now that it’s quite close to the hypocenter of where the bomb was dropped. They’ve marked it with a pillar. I have plenty of pictures, take a look (if I’ve uploaded them :p).

We stopped to have lunch and then decided to go back to Nagasaki. We took the trolley-bus (tram type vehicle) back to Urakami and then took the train. What we hadn’t realized is that the trolley-bus went all the way to Nagasaki as well, which saves you money too. The trolley-bus costs 100 yen wherever you go (app. 70 euro cts) and the train ride already cost us 160 yen. We were now paying 260 instead of 100. We figured out how silly we were being when we asked around for a denki ya, an electronics shop. It turned out that the shop was one stop further than the one for the peace park where we had gotten off earlier that day, ánd we only had to take the trolley-bus. The trolley-bus is interesting by the way, it works the exact opposite way of public transport in Holland. You get in at the back, and when you get out, at the front, you pay.

Either way, we found the BIG BIG BIG BIG shop, called Yamada Denki (Yamada electronics; lit. electricity). We went there initially because Claudia and Gerrie wanted a camera. I had a 2 megapixel one which has served me perfectly well until now, but those shiny brand new super cameras they had there were rather attractive. I wanted to buy a new camera at some point during my stay here, but when I saw this camera the moment had come rather sooner than expected. It was a seriously good deal too. We got the camera (a Casio EX-Z700; 7.2 megapixel), a 1GB memory card, and a solid case for the grand total of 280 euros. That’s one hell of a deal, and it was only today. That’s what really got me. If the offer had been on longer, I might have thought about it, but now I couldn’t help myself. So we left like 3 happy campers with our brand new toys, had some dinner (quite a fiasco - when my food came it was something completely different to what I thought I had ordered, and not to my advantage) and now we’re back at the hotel. It’s another night in for us. I’m all ready to go, but unfortunately now everyone else is feeling a bit tired haha.

Today I felt a bit better, having had a good night’s sleep. Nagasaki still isn’t the beautiful city I had hoped it would be, but it doesn’t seem as horrible as it did yesterday. Tomorrow we’re going to the harbour, maybe it’ll be completely different there, who knows. Anyway, so far so good, and I can’t wait to get to the dorms so I can post all my stories!

Love, Jenn

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Nagasaki 3

It’s Saturday? Woa, time feels weird here. It doesn’t feel like Saturday (what does it feel like then – no idea, just not like Saturday ;) ) I just don’t have a concept of time here at the moment. Things just happen exactly the same as well, I can’t tell the difference.

Today we decided to go to Glover’s garden. I have to admit I still don’t know who Glover was, but basically he was an important enough foreigner at some point in time to have a whole park named after him :). We caught the streetcar again, passed Dejima (where the Dutch were stationed for a long time) and then we had to climb the Dutch slopes. Do nót ask me why they named a steep upwards sloping road after the people who come from a very flat country, because it’s a mystery to me :). When we got there we saw a HUGE cruise ship called the Sapphire Princess. It turned out it was a Japanese ship, launched from Nagasaki 2 years before. It can hold over 3000 people and today happened to be the first time it returned to Nagasaki in those two years, so it was quite an event. The place was thus absolutely crowded with foreigners, mostly 65+ English couples. It was almost strange to see so many foreigners together here, it’s not normal hehe.

Anyway, having climbed up these Dutch slopes in the blistering heat (well fine; humid heat then) we climbed up to Glover’s garden with the very much appreciated use of some escalators, yes, outside escalators. In the garden we saw a koi carper pond (they were huge too) and plenty of restored houses supposedly resembling the homes and offices of the foreigners that used to live there. ** just for future reference, when I say foreigners, I refer to non-Japanese people; namely Europeans/Americans ** It was mostly the view that was spectacular, we could see almost all of Nagasaki from up there! One thing I must add here was the wonderful experience of seeing Claudia and Gerrie dressed up in old-fashioned clothes. For about 3,5 euros you could walk around in those clothes for 30 minutes. We happily followed them around taking pictures, with Claudia even being asked to pose with some little kid who really didn’t want to be there. As pay back we followed some dressed-up Japanese people around and asked to have our picture taken with them ;). That’ll show them! Hehe, just kidding.

After a quick but well deserved-lunch (katsudon! Rice with egg and bread-crumbed deep fried pork – it’s nicer than it sounds ;) ) it was past 3 o’clock already and we decided to go take a look at Dejima wharf, where Richard had been the day before. It was so peaceful compared to the busy and chaotic centre of town. It was very relaxing. We walked past some ‘authentic’ Dejima buildings, with plenty of people dressed in clothing of those days waving obligingly. At the wharf I had a most delicious ice café mocha (hmm).

After our little rest we went to the brand new shopping mall near Dejima wharf. I found my Starbucks!!! I had almost lost hope of ever finding a starbucks in Nagasaki, but I’ve found it! My stay in Japan will not be in vain ;) Too bad it’s quite far away, but hey, can’t complain :P We had a good shop around, found EVEN more Vans (baby cute Vans!) and bought a new wallet and a little note book to keep track of the things we’ve been doing. I just had to laugh at the note book, my apologies if some people don’t think it’s funny :P

So, having filled our day once more, we went to the combini for a quick bite to eat and got ready to go out. I was still up for it today after the little let down yesterday and we went off to the same izakaya (it’s like a bar, but they sell plenty of food as well. Not really meals, but more than just nibbles. You could potentially make it your dinner if you ordered lots of small dishes; but mainly it’s about drinks) as the others had been to but it was full. We wasted our time going to a different one. It was so boring we left and tried Za Watami again, this time successfully. You get to sit at a really long table so that other people sit next to you, but there are dividers so that if you want privacy, it’s possible. We all ordered drinks and at first the people that ended up next to us weren’t that interesting. All of a sudden, before anyone really knew what was happening we ended up having a good chat with these guys. Two of them were in a metal band, totally into German metal. Hilarious, considering we were staring at two really skinny, girly guys. Another guy ‘happened’ to be the owner of a different izakaya and invited us to go to his place some time. Unfortunately we have a curfew to stick to and we had to leave really quickly. This is the part where it gets embarrassing. The izakaya guy took our bill and said he’d pay for us, and we couldn’t convince him otherwise. So all in all a pretty ok night I’d say. Next time, no curfew, and bring on the fun!

Only two more nights and we’re in the dorm. Time flies, and yet also it seems like we’ve been here forever. If I think about the fact that we’ve only spent 4 nights here, it seems really strange! Because it feels so much longer. It feels like I’ve been away from home for ever so long, when it’s not even a week. I miss home even though I’ve been away longer than this. I guess it’s a mental thing, and also the lack of communication I guess. Can’t wait to see my dorm room, see the uni and meet more new people!

But for now, good night!

oyasumi