New Sky Kumamoto

After our unfortunately late night last night, waking up was difficult this morning. We managed, however, to get to the train station with plenty of time. The first leg of our ride was about 4 hours and involved crossing between the island of Hokkaido and the island of Honshu via a long undersea tunnel (kind of like the train that runs ...

... y gente!! El calor en Nagasaki era insoportable, muy pegajoso, asi que lo primero que hicimos fue pegarnos una ducha.
Cuando termine, yo me baje al comedor y me puse a hablar con un chico americano de Texas. Su acento no se parecia nada al de Brett, pero pronto le cogi el tranquillo. Habia estado viajando por Tailandia y China. Por lo visto China le habia gustado mas que Japon: no hay tantas normas, todo es mas relajado, y la gente es muy amigable. Cuando ...

... y la que parece ser su hija. Su marido fallecio hace un ano y ayer justamente celebraban el aniversario con 50 invitados. Habian dejado flores y regalos junto a su retrato. Parecian bastante amigables, pero sin pasarse, muy a su rollo. Tienen el hostal, donde ellas tambien viven, decorado con cosas inservibles, como payasos de plastico, montones de posters, memorabilia de diferentes lugares... todo un poco viejo, pero limpio. Por supuesto, tampoco tienen ...

... 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 ...

... one active volcano in the area - with the idea that we'll walk around its crater before heading back down. Unfortunately - due to volcanic activity - the crater is not the safest place to be that day so we just decide to walk down from the top - about a 3 hour jaunt. Again the views are great and despite the snow storm the previous night, the day is warm and clear. We decided to try and take a short cut through the woods, lost our bearings ...

... little English and happily chatted away to me in Japanese. I was the only girl staying so I had a dorm room to myself. It was one of the best kitted out dorm rooms I've been in; clothes rails and coat hangers, oil heater, fans and ventilation for the summer, thick curtains, bed side lamps, really nice. The hostel itself is utterly cluttered, it's great! A piano, plants everywhere, writing desks covered in papers and books ...

... I found another vending machine place; take a look at the picture menu, or plastic food in the window, decide what you want, go in, place your order via a vending machine - money in, press the right picture button - take a seat and wait for a waitress to come confirm your order. It is fast food I suppose but so much more civilised. Also in Japan being a lone eater is not something to be ashamed of, there are plenty of counters designed for people eating alone. I ...

... change into for bathroom visits (make sure to leave prior slippers in right place, and don't forget to leave bathroom slippers behind where they belong), and occasionally a still different pair for odd-numbered Thursday afternoons between 5 and 5:30... So in Nagasaki for final day or so. Nagasaki has amazing history - 'twas Japan's only trickle of a link with the western world for 150ish years of intense self-imposed seclusion. After initial Portugese ...

Today is my first of 2 days off so I signed up for a free Japanese lesson at the Intl center. The lesson went really well mainly because I met a Mexican woman who basically translated everythign that my Japanese teacher couldnt say to me in English. I learned basic introductions, but spent most of the time learning how to write/read the Hiragana and Katakana phonetic alphabets. I must say..its friggin hard. For me, its comparable to Arabic in the fact ...

... which is like a hotel. We can't check-in until 4pm so we drop our bags in Dr. Yamada's office. Across the hall is a room where his students are working and they take turn introducing themselves to us. There are pictures up from Fumi's time at the lab in Delaware, including one of us with our names written below in Japanese. It's clear that they've been expecting our visit and later Fumi tells us that they have been practicing their English a lot. We have lunch ...