Chisun Kumamoto

... England and France beneath the English Channel). The next part of our journey was about two hours and we arrived in Sendai even more exhuasted than we did in Hakodate.
We were able to overcome our fatigue and head for the island of Matsushima, listed as one of the three most beautiful places in Japan. Our first order of ...

... un rato hablando se nos junto una chica de unos 19-20 anos, que resulto ser de Valencia. Para mas coincidencia, estaba estudiando en la Universidad de Leeds. Le habian mandado a Beijing a hacer su ano de intercambio. y ahora estaba en Japon de vacaciones con su hermano mayor, que acababa de terminar la carrera en Leeds tambien. Era una chica super-maja. Muy jovencita, pero muy espabilada tambien. Hablaba espanol, ingles (con muy buen acento), chino, frances y ...

... Eso si, teniamos el hostal para nosotras solas, siendo las unicas huespedes.
Nos sentamos un ratillo en la terracita a disfrutar de la brisa -necesario despues de haber estado cargando con las peazo mochilas. Las tiendas cerraban pronto, asi que nos dirigimos a Lawson a comprar la cena. Por el camino nos fijamos mejor en el paisaje. Uno de los volcanes estaba humeando y las montanas, que ahora se veian claramente con el sol del atardecer, tenian un ...

... dingen die we hier willen zien (we zijn hier mede voor een uitstapje naar mount Aso morgen, maar het kasteel en een Japanse tuin stonden op de planning voor vandaag). Vanmiddag hebben we dus (ondanks het weer) Kumamoto kasteel bezocht. Erg mooi. Daarna hebben we de Suizenji Jojuen Garden bezocht. Deze tuin werd aangelegd door Tadatoshi Hosokawa. Hij koos deze locatie vanwege het heldere water dat zeer ...

... quickly and made "like a fish" back to the main path. Unfortunately the town is that small that there is only 1 restaurant which remained closed all day. That night - despite staying in a relatively expensive Ryokan, recently refurbished with all mod cons - we ended up eating pot noodles from the garage down the road - talk about reining the budget in!! Great place to spend a couple of days though having the ability to cook would have helped.

... feeling a bit dizzy. I think you are supposed to soak for an hour or so but I had to get out. On the way home I thought an ice cream would help cool me down. Haagen Daz do a nice Green Tea flavoured ice cream here. Back at the hostel it was another Curry Noodle (perhaps I should get shares in the company?) and a banana in front of the TV with the ladies. The news was on and very kindly the ladies switched the audio to ...

I only had one day and night in Kumamoto so I was up and out to get an early train from Nagasaki. I arrived about lunchtime - after a bit of dithering to find my guest house Master, we got back to his house around 1pm. The Master was very kind picking me up from the station, he also offered to take me back in the morning. In fact he was really pleased to ferry me about town; as I wanted to visit the castle and he wanted to get back into town to do some shopping ...

... traders arrived in 1500s there was much interest in western technologies, but foreign-ness & Christianity were viewed as threats and, coupled with good ol' fashioned xenophobia, Japan fearfully slammed its doors. In 1597, 6 Spanish friars and 20 Japanese (some were teenage boys) were crucified here if you doubt the power of fear-of-other... Penalty of death for any Japanese who traveled abroad, and the Dutch (who were viewed as being more motivated ...

... just too damn bright. The Western style room feels much cozier, so we'll see how that goes. On a side note, apparently I slept through a minor earthquake the other night. Friends asked me if I had felt the earthquake around 5am, and when I answered "What earthquake", they got their answer =P. That's all I have for today. Hopefully my next Post will come via my very own internet connection and will be accompanied by ONE MILLLLLLION pictures. Cheers -nando

... Yamada has made plans for us to try this tonight. After lunch, we take a stroll around campus and then part company around 2:00pm as Dr. Yamada must lead a hydraulics lab from 2:30 - 4:00. We use this time to go to the campus library to see if we can use internet. We aren't able to because we are not students. We walk outside and stop at the student center, there is a computer here where we are able to check our email. After this, we sit outside and have sodas ...