February 13th (Dejima and Yaki Niku party)

Well so much for updating my blog. No more moping though, here it is!

Last tuesday, the 13th, Gerrie and I decided to go to the Nagasaki Prefecture Museum of Art. So after a stop at the starbucks we set off to the museum only to find it was closed. Bummer. No fear though, Dejima is just around the corner, so we decided to see that instead! Dejima is the place where the originally the Portuguese, but mostly the Dutch resided during the period of seclusion of Japan. It was the only place where the Japanese had contact or dealings with foreigners, and it just so happens to have been in Nagasaki. Based on the remains found etc etc they have rebuilt Dejima, not quite it's original size, but there are a fair amount of buildings, with all sorts of artifacts and bits and pieces inside. It was really quite interesting! During the warmer summer period there are actually people in costume I believe, but none the day we went. Too bad, but hey, who needs dressed up people when real Dutch people are walking around Dejima (ie. Gerrie and myself). We wondered around a bit, it was sort of fun!

We had plans for a yaki-niku party in the evening with a whole bunch of Japanese people from the "english" group (they don't really speak english but that's ok hehe). So Gerrie and I made our way to the place where we were supposed to meet the others, but we were wáy too early haha. So we wandered around the area a bit, found a few interesting shops and restaurants. It was cool, because we would otherwise never have gone into that neighbourhood. And who would have wanted to miss Gerrie in those wonderful glasses, or a close up of the Hello Kitty guitar? (see photobucket pictures).

Yaki-niku is where basically you cook your own food on a bbq type grill thing (yaki-niku means "grilled meat" literally). Anyone who has see Lost in Translation, the part with the "bad lunch" where they even had to cook their own food... that's yaki-niku! I think all the Dutch people were there, Sahim was there, Masa came, and seriously a lot of Japanese people. It turned out to be sort of a goodbye party for Ken, a prominent member of the group who is going to China for a year for his study. The food was really really good, I missed the previous yaki-niku party but I had been told it was good, but it was even better than I had expected! Basically you could eat and drink as much as you want. There were all sorts of different types of meat, with a few sauces, and we ordered some "vegetables" as well (that means some cabbage, onion, dry carrot and a few bits of green pepper) and it was really really fun. All too soon it was time to go already, we had a reservation at the Karaoke bar. Thank goodness for the rolling-on-the-floor-drunk Japanese people (well just one guy really), the karaoke bar was only an elevator ride away.

Karaoke was fun to a certain extent. We were with quite a lot of people, which means you're waiting around for that one song you want to sing to come along because some people just enter 10 songs at once, which means you get to listen to the same people over and over again, until it's finally your turn, and then people hi-jack your song because they love it too and there's really no point in you singing anymore because it's not like somebody would notice if you weren't singing and the microphone is jerked out of your hands before you have decided to even try or not.
So much for "jenn why aren't you singing?" well give me back the b***** mic and I just might! Sorry, Karaoke is stressful! But really quite fun with a smaller group and you get a turn and stuff. I'm just not so quick on the songs, I sit there flipping through the book trying to decided what to sing, by that time there are already 20 songs programmed and the time is up before it's my turn. So that's why with a smaller group it's more fun. Anyway, all in all the night was a success I must say! I couldn't get out of the karaoke bar fast enough, I was so tired, but it was fun!

On to the next blog post, about the rést of the week ;)

x Jenn

Pictures of February 13th