Well yesterday I continued my exploration of Nagasaki. The Densha are actually relatively easy to use, and rather cheap too. I really cant wait for the free school bus to start running so that I can easily get out to Sumiyoshi(Where the Densha start, yesterday I walked out there with Ryan). I took the Red Densha out to Megame Bridge and walked around there for some time. Megame Bridge is a decently old bridge that has its design orgins with the Romans. I dont think the bridge itself is the cool part, but the river with the different carps, and storks in it which was interesting. I really went down there to look for the downtown Hard Off but I guess that can wait....As I couldnt find it anywhere close to Megane Bridge. Finnaly when I was wondering around, I stopped at a Book/CD/Video Game store. While looking at a Mecha Model Magazine I saw that there is also going to be a new Maccross OAV out. Wether its going to be more like Maccross 7, or Maccross Plus I cant say...




I did find a Hard Off in the opposite direction from the school that Seyu is in. A little farther down there is also a relitevly new building called Best. It like a Best Buy mixed with a hardware store. Kinda interesting to go to, but still kinda pricey.




Finnaly, I think my next trip it is going to be out a bookstore. I cant remember the full name of the store but part of its name is Saitoh.

 
Sorry for the mess below..



I need to remember to use br not just to hit enter...Ah well

 
Well...Some more reactions...

So far I have really enjoyed all the food that I have had so far. I think I like Curry Tonkatsu the best. It is Curry Rice with pieces of Tonkatsu mixed in. My host Mother made it one night. Also Squid, and Eel are quite good. Squid has a interesting texture and tastes good. Especially with food like Chompon. Eel is slightly sweat, and I really like the effect that eel "juices" has on rice.

What else....I went on a guided tour of Nagasaki with Seb and two Japanese students on last Saturday. I think we first went to the peace park. The first part was kinda uplifting with the Giant Statue and moving water. However, the museum and epicenter were much more solem. I think Seb said something about how it was wrong to see Steal that was bent by wind.

Next, on a much more pleasant note, we went to Showo Shrine. This was realy cool. Before we got to the shrine we bumped into some older gentleman who actually showed us around the whole thing. It is a lot bigger than just the main Pagado. There are actually a lot of interesting rituals and hidden corners of the different parts of the Sowa Shrine.

Other than that I have been screwing around finding my way around town. I think I have figured out how to get around to most places, and its kinda cool to go to some places:
Book-off: A used book store that has a lot of Managa and other books for only $1 a piece. They also have a lot of LDs, some DVDs, VHS tapes, and even some games.

Toys-R-US:The remote control tank model for $15 that could actually fire was cool. Also the remote control mecha was also cool. I think most of the toys are actually from anime series.

Mc Donalds: The largest Japanese size is the standard american size. They also use a differetnt oil on the fries which makes them taste slightly different. For some reason the oil makes me think of some sort of sea weed.

Oh yeah...One more difference between Japan and America. In japan things start out really expensive, and then suddenly get much less expensive. Used things seem to be really cheap. Dont know if there is some sort of stigmata there. While in American items all start out cheaper and slowly get cheaper over time. It works out really well. I know Seb has gotten a bunch of $1-$3 cds of groups he wanted because they were out of vogue.

Finnaly...I know there are conversion rates...But I would like to see not only a converstion rate between money, but what that money can buy you in its country. At least compaired to Japanese prices, I think Americans have it good....(For example a new DVD of the Gundam F-91 movie is $60 in Japan...Where I bet in American it would be $20-$30).

 
We finnaly got into Nagasaki, I think last week wensday by bus. Once at the college we had a lunch which was rice with a variety of other things. It was pretty good...In fact I have enjoyed all the food I have had in japan so far. We had a little class time where they talked about Japan, and the different things, and then the host family picked me up.

The next few days, it was basicly go to school, take bus home(Easy, after the first time....) and fall asleep early. I kept waking up in the middle of the night, and I just finnaly forced myself to stay up really late to get over jet lag. I remember jet lag being easier to get over when going to turkey....

As for the host family, they are really nice. I came home to the son playing Metal Gear Solid 2 on the families PS2(Which they bought because it could play DVDs not for the games). It was kinda nice they could speak english as well as they do, because being stupidly tired didnt help me remember japanese at all...

Well, I think that is enough for one sitting...More later..

 
Well, after the flight, and after I picked up my luggage(see two posts ago), we were met at the Airport by Mark Tiedaman(sorry...dont remember how to spell it correctly). From there we took a subway to the Green Hotel Number 2.

Once we were checked in and showered, the group decided to go to the local 7-11. Which was interesting. No big gulps, and it looked like they had a lot more fresh food. I think I bought a Poccori Sweat, which is like a Melon Gatorade drink.

Also during the time it took to shower, people had come by the town and had hung up porn ads everywhere. They kinda plastered a large part of the town we were in. They were also all gone by morning.

 
I am going to try and break these down into smaller posts...But here goes for some of the differences Ive noticed so far.

1. No ground plugs.
Well kinda. In some places there is a little circle by the plug where you can run the wire from the plug to the circle to groud it. But these are rare. It is especially weird because they dont even have ground for the larger appliences, or for their computers. Maybe its a good way to keep the electronics industry fruitfull.

2. No Bubblers.
The reason for this is, I believe, the japanese dont trust their water supply. So instead of trying to purify it localy, they just dont have bubblers. This is driving my crazy because I am used to drinking water all throughout the day. I need to buy a water bottle somewhere....

I also dont think that the japanese drink as much water as americans do. I remember being told several times that you should drink 8 galsses of water a day...I dont know where the japanese get thier water intake from.