Nagasaki
I`ve just returned from a week in Nagasaki, sorry this blog hasn`t been keeping track with actual events.
We flew out Tuesday morning (I was hoping we could have taken a train but anyway) I sat between two Sweedish chicks on the plane. By the end of the flight one had passed out and the other was pregnant! Well actually she was pregnant at the start of the flight and the other one has low blood pressure and passed out because of the bumpy flight, in fact neither of them are even blonde (not that I don`t like brunettes ;-) ). But it was a rough flight the plane was coming in to land and then pulled up very suddenly. We latter got the message that the pilot could not see the runaway so was going to try again - very reassuring.
We landed in light snow, a first for one member of our Aussie delegation, which made the beautiful scenery even more picturesque. We drove through lots of hills and valleys like the New Zealand south island along a very good road system of tunnels and bridges like what I imagine the Swiss alps to be. Nagasaki is much less crowded than Tokyo, Nagasaki city has about 4-500,000 people and the prefecture (state) has 1.6 million.
We had a great welcoming ceremony, great food, a traditional women's kimono dance an extremely energetic youth dance which drew on a range of contemporary cultures.
We finished the night with some of the local Japanese youth in a Japanese kareoke bar, seated on the floor with room for you legs in a hole in the floor under the table (so your posture is as we`re used to except there is no back to the chair). The best thing we we had our own private room with about 12-15 of us from our group and a kareoke machine all to ourselves and all the old favourite songs, I sang several. The Japanese know how to party and are great performers. One girl, Kaori, had the most amazing voice and another guy had a terrible voice but so much passion and acting it up we knew they had set the standards high and low respectively the rest of us could only come in the middle so we just a had a great time. We even managed to let us pay for them (not without a fight) cause we`ve hardly had to pay for anything yet, (total bill about 25,000 yen or $300 dollars.
got to go, heaps more to tell, loving it all.
We flew out Tuesday morning (I was hoping we could have taken a train but anyway) I sat between two Sweedish chicks on the plane. By the end of the flight one had passed out and the other was pregnant! Well actually she was pregnant at the start of the flight and the other one has low blood pressure and passed out because of the bumpy flight, in fact neither of them are even blonde (not that I don`t like brunettes ;-) ). But it was a rough flight the plane was coming in to land and then pulled up very suddenly. We latter got the message that the pilot could not see the runaway so was going to try again - very reassuring.
We landed in light snow, a first for one member of our Aussie delegation, which made the beautiful scenery even more picturesque. We drove through lots of hills and valleys like the New Zealand south island along a very good road system of tunnels and bridges like what I imagine the Swiss alps to be. Nagasaki is much less crowded than Tokyo, Nagasaki city has about 4-500,000 people and the prefecture (state) has 1.6 million.
We had a great welcoming ceremony, great food, a traditional women's kimono dance an extremely energetic youth dance which drew on a range of contemporary cultures.
We finished the night with some of the local Japanese youth in a Japanese kareoke bar, seated on the floor with room for you legs in a hole in the floor under the table (so your posture is as we`re used to except there is no back to the chair). The best thing we we had our own private room with about 12-15 of us from our group and a kareoke machine all to ourselves and all the old favourite songs, I sang several. The Japanese know how to party and are great performers. One girl, Kaori, had the most amazing voice and another guy had a terrible voice but so much passion and acting it up we knew they had set the standards high and low respectively the rest of us could only come in the middle so we just a had a great time. We even managed to let us pay for them (not without a fight) cause we`ve hardly had to pay for anything yet, (total bill about 25,000 yen or $300 dollars.
got to go, heaps more to tell, loving it all.
posted by James Tonson | 10:31 pm
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