Long Weekend in Nagasaki

I had a great long weekend in Kyushu Island in Southern Japan. After work on Friday, Asuka and I took the bus from Hiroshima to Nagasaki. The night bus ride was fine and we arrived in Nagasaki in the morning and then took another bus to Huis tem Bosch. Essentially, Huis ten Bosch is a re-created Dutch city in Japan. http://english.huistenbosch.co.jp/about/idea/index.html . The Dutch and the Japanese have traditionally had a strong connection as the Dutch were the only western foreigners allowed to trade with Japan during the feudal age. The place was created when a very rich Japanese dude in the 80’s decided to rebuild a Dutch city in Japan after touring Europe. Therefore, Huis ten Bosch was born. Think of it as a Dutch theme park. After going to Holland this summer, I must say that the park really does look like Dutch city.

So Asuka and I arrived around 11ish at the park and spent the whole day walking around and touring the sites of Huis Ten Bosch. The place was huge and everything was really well done. All the buildings were pretty authentic and we walked around and saw tons of flowers and even Dutch boats and windmills. The park also has rides and we got the full pass to see it all. I must say that the rides were all pretty lame though. It was probably exacerbated by the fact that all the actors were Dutch and had Japanese voice over. So essentially I had no clue what was going on and it looked like a bad Chinese kung fu movie from the 70’s. The rides weren’t too good, but some of the exhibits were pretty neat. We saw lots of Dutch chinaware and recreations of feudal Japanese towns in Nagasaki when the Dutch first landed. Overall, we had a good time touring the park and managed to eat a lot of the sausage and cheese samples.

After Huis Ten Bosch we made our way to our hotel. The placed we stayed was really close to the park and had a great view from our room of some of the buildings. The hotel also had an onsen so Asuka and we were able to relax after a long day of travel and walking. The onsen was really nice and had a great view.

The next morning on Sunday we made our way to Nagasaki. Nagasaki had a summer festival going on and we were able to catch some of the festivities. The Kunchi Matsuri has over a 350 year old history. The neat thing about Nagasaki was that it was the only city in Japan that had contact with the western world for roughly 250 years. The official Dutch traders had a man made island built there and a large Chinese community also existed in Nagasaki. Therefore, the festival really reflects the background of the city. We were able to walk along the streets and try out a lot of the yummy street food, even though they can get quite pricey if you eat a lot. I had a lot of skewers and fresh mochi.

As for the festivities we were able to see up close a boat/shrine dance. It was really neat as a wooden boat with young kids inside made its way around the city. In certain stops it would perform a ceremony that had the older men spinning and pushing the boat in different directions. In the boat there were a group of young kids ringing their bells and chanting. The demonstration we saw had a really cute kid at the front of the boat performing a ceremony where he has a net and throws it into the “water” and catches fish. The men moving the wooden boats had gorgeous kimonos and I believe that they represented the waves. Overall, it was a blast to watch.

We also got a dragon parade that is very similar to the Chinese New Year festivals. It even has the ones the performers wearing traditional Chinese clothing. They marched all around town with these elaborate dragon puppet and it was really cool to see them dance and meander their way through the streets.

Asuka and I also managed to see more Dutch buildings and part of a recreated Dejima, the manmade island where the Dutch lived while they traded with the Japanese. All the buildings were pretty neat and it was cool seeing first hand a lot of the stuff I had studied in Japanese history. We saw lots of little museums and you could really see the influence from the Dutch who were there for over 200 years.

Since Nagasaki had a strong Chinese influence they also have a Chinatown. I have never seen a Chinatown this clean before, definitely not keefer street in Vancouver. I was pretty excited about getting some Chinese food and Asuka and I toured around the area and finally picked out this one restaurant. First off, the prices there were charging was pretty steep. I don’t think I’ve ever paid this much for Chinese food. The price wasn’t that big of a deal but the food honestly wasn’t too good. It actually wasn’t really Chinese. Well I guess you can really expect that much but overall it was a fun day in Nagasaki. The next morning we made our way back to Hiroshima and arrived back home at night. I managed to visit a big book store and picked up a few more English books. I just finished this really good book on the Yakuza that Asuka got me. Really in depth and shows the influence the Yakuza has had and still has on Japanese society. Its called Yakuza: Japan's Criminal Underworld by Kaplan and Dubro. I also picked up a few more books on Japanese history and mythology too.

As for the past week, I just had school that went pretty well. The students were really good this week and I had a fun week teaching. Oh and on Wednesday I became another year older at 23 years of age. Had a good Birthday as Asuka made me steak dinner and we just relaxed at home. Planning on having a dinner next week sometime. Oh and thanks for the B-day emails. Not sure if anyone is interested but the deadline to apply for Jet is on November 18, here is the website: http://www.ca.emb-japan.go.jp/ExchangeProgram/jetweb/ . If you are applying, let me know and I'll help you as best as I can.

As for Japanese factoid #7, it is about how the Japanese use a lot of resources. For example: Japan is the largest user of waribashi (disposable chopsticks) in the world. They use about 13,000,000 pairs everyday. Recycling has become quite organized and encouraged in society but in general the Japanese just use of lot of paper and wrapping. Like in chocolate bars and cookies, every individual piece is wrapped. In Japan, If you open a box of Oreos, every Oreo will be individually wrapped. Despite the fact that you can't just grab a handful and shove it in your mouth, it also takes precious moments of your time to unwrap the little buggers. Hence, the amount of wrapping and garbage you get is enormous sometimes. You are always given tons of plastic bags in grocery stores and in school I get like a million newsletters and printed messages a day.

My kids and Furnishing the Apartment

Exciting weekend coming up. Amazingly, its another long weekend so Asuka and I have decided to utilize it and head off to Nagasaki. There is a really cool Dutch settlement and since Nagasaki is closer to China it has a lot of Chinese influence. So they have a large Chinatown that I look forward to visiting. Starting to really miss Chinese food. They also have a huge festival this weekend that has them carrying a large dragon float, really similar to Chinese New Year. I will tell you all about it when I get back. Picture above: View of Kawajiri, taken while rollerblading.

As for the last week or so there hasn’t been too much going on here. Just school as usual. I have been going to elementary a lot and the kids there are a lot of fun. I even brought my hockey equipment this week and this one super cute/mischievous 1^st grader put it on. At Noro-higashi, a smaller elemtnary school the principal is a taiko master and he’s been training the kids since they enter the school at grade 1. So the kids play taiko super well and put on an awesome performance for me.

So both elementary and high school has been fun. The weather here is starting to change a bit more and its getting a tad colder. This week it has rained a lot and I left my umbrella at home and got absolutely soak when I got off the train and had to walk to school. Luckily the gym teacher had a spare t-shirt and I wore that for the rest of the day. Last week we also had a city wide meeting at a school in kure. The school was pretty cool as it was set on top of a hill, so it had a great view of the city. We had to park at the bottom of the hill and hike our way up. The intresting thing about the school was that part way up the mountain there was a cemetery. So the kids actually see a cemetery when they look out the window.

Had dinner in Kure yesterday as melody’s fiancé finally came from new Zealand. We went to an izakaya again and we had a good meal. Mel’s fiancé Jason is 6`3, close to 300 pounds and also a super nice guy. Though I have to watch myself and not make fun of mel too much because it might cause me to get the crap kicked out of me. My supervisor, Mr. Sakata also stopped by with 3 other teachers and it was fun chatting with them outside of work.

As for Asuka, she seems to have settled here quite nicely, we’ve been slowly buying more stuff for the apartment and it appears we have almost everything we need. Asuka signed up for two placement companies last week and luckily that got back to her with a job from Mazda. It pays pretty quite well and it will have to do with translating Japanese and English documents and conferences. She’ll visit the company next week and should start work shortly. It also funny that she will be working for Mazda as both her father and brother work for Honda and Honda was the reason why she was even able to live in Canada in the first place when her dad got sent to Ontario. Picture of me pillow shopping at the department store.

Well that’s all that been going on, as for my Japanese factoid #6 let me explain how there are no janitors in Japanese schools. Back home we always have a janitor to clean the washrooms and sweep the floors. However, in Japan, the students and teachers keep the school clean. So everyday after the last class the whole school does a huge cleanup. And I really mean clean up. Kids get on their knees and scrub the floors with towels. You see kids on ledges wiping the windows and even racking leaves and picking roots on the school grounds. I help up with the garbage disposal, but it really is quite efficient and it gives the students a responsibility to keep the school clean because they know that they will have to clean it up if they get it dirty.