Boot + Santa + Shrimp + Mountain

Gooood morning!

Observation: Japanese people cán be spontaneous! But more about that later :).

Yesterday was quite the eventful day! We started off with going to see 2 teachers from Leiden university who are currently in Nagasaki for a symposium. We went to see one of their lectures, but as it’s in Japanese we didn’t really understand what they were talking about. Smits was comparing the motto’s and captions of these old Dutch pictures, with Latin or old Dutch text, with Japanese pictures and text. That’s what I made of it anyway! So having received our free bottle of Evian, our power point printouts and a couple of very pretty transparent folder with a picture of Dejima or flowers or something on it, we went off to see Gerrie as father Christmas!!

We sat in the Royal Host with a drink and a piece of cake watching all the preparations, with Gerrie listening intently to all he was being told. Then it was time! There were sooo many kids! They were probably all from the same rich kindergarten (no orphan Christmas cheer). They all gathered together, neatly in rows in their little cute uniforms. The MC was a very skinny Japanese girl in a Santa woman dress, that really didn’t suit her, she was too skinny, but yeah. So they sang a few Christmas-y songs (in Japanese!! – see movies) and then it was time to light the tree! They did a count down and then…. Nothing happened. It was either practice or the girl and the boy chosen to press the dummy button were a bit dummy. Anyway, off they went again and this time it worked!! It was all a bit silly as they had turned the tree off in order to do the lighting ceremony, but anywayyyy, it was fun! And then, what was that? Did you hear that?? (ring ring) It’s santa!!! (see movie). There was Gerrie cruising down the escalator going “ho ho ho (desu)”, waving and smiling… How cute :) He was totally in his element. We cheered him on while he handed out presents to all the little kids and then all went off to have some dinner, where Gerrie joined us later. We had promised Sachi that we would come by again sometime this week, so that’s what Claudia, Mummy and I went off to do!

We had a good old chat with Sachi and Yoriko while playing ‘where did mummy’s earring go’ with Nonoka. It was all quite pleasant until one of the Uchiwa-ebi’s (fan shrimp; so called because their upper body looks like a Japanese fan) suddenly moved! There is a display case with food you can order and there were two of them in there, and I always thought they were dead, but these were definitely still alive!! Well I should never have said anything, because before I knew it the poor thing was being grilled. Yes, alive. It jumped about for quite a while too (see movie). Then Sachi had another brilliant idea, yes, you could eat it as sashimi (raw) too! Oh GOODY. So he got the second one out and CHOP, off with his head! So while one was bouncing around on the grill the other was decapitated and gutted. The sashimi version was then served with all the bits and pieces to make it look ‘pretty’ except its legs were still moving and so was its mouth. Yuck. Mummy was brave enough to have a go, Claudia sort of followed, but I don’t like shrimp in general, and this really was too much, not quite that adventurous! Then the cooked version was served, chopped in two lengthways and with your chopsticks you had to yank the yummies out :P. Mummy says she has to admit it was really quite tasty, so there you go. After this little ‘feast’ it was time to go home, we hadn’t planned on staying very long, but it was mummy’s last night in Nagasaki and we hadn’t actually been to Biado’s yet, so that’s why we went. We were actually the last one’s there still, so Sachi said he’d drive us home, so off we went. On the way he asked us if mummy had been to Mt. Inasa, which she hadn’t. So off we went again on another adventure, up Mt. Inasa. Who says the Japanese can’t be spontaneous? Or us for that matter ;) He had never been up there by car so we messed around for a bit, but we finally found it and it was definitely worth it!! The view was amazing!! You could see all of Nagasaki, all lit up, breathtaking. So was the wind mind you.











Nonoka wasn’t dressed for the occasion, wearing just a shirt and a pair of shorts, no socks or shoes, so I gave her my scarf and bodywarmer, but that didn’t make me any warmer. But it really was worth it, and will definitely go again, wearing a bit more clothes.

So today it’s raining and miserable and I really don’t want to get dressed, I’m quite happy in my PJ’s, but Sachi just came by laughing at us for not being dressed yet and not having done our 8 o’clock morning exercise which he claims to have done but he was obviously lying about, and so I’m getting dressed now and going off to Amu Plaza to visit the silent Santa. Gerrie has lost his voice, so he won’t be doing a lot of ‘ho ho ho’-ing. I want to have my pictures taken with Santa Gerrie though, so off I go!

For now this is the last update, next update will follow Wednesday, as I am going on a trip to Kyoto and Nara with uni starting tomorrow. See you then, enjoy the pictures, don’t forget to look at the movies!!

Love,

Jennifer

ps: I had my picture taken with Santa Richard! Santa Gerrie wasn't on duty today ;)