Brian: More Golden Week Updates

5/1/07
¥500 bus to Aso summit
¥440 ropeway entrance to Aso summit
¥500 bus down
¥700 German-style omelette rice
¥130 bus to Kumamoto castle
¥500 admission to Kumamoto castle
¥130 bus back to Kumamoto station
¥100 streetcar to hotel in Nagasaki
¥1974 steak dinner at Gyuemon
¥1166 karaoke
¥105 juice OJ from FamilyMart
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¥6245 total

It did not look like a good day to climb Mt. Aso. When we got up and had toast for breakfast, it was overcast and raining outside. Nonetheless, we gamely took headed for the bus-stop and took the 30 minute bus ride to the top of Mt. Aso. As the bus traveled further and further up the mountain, it became almost completely enshrouded in fog. At some points the visibility was at most 10 ft. It probably wasn’t that dangerous, however, because the bus could only climb the mountain very slowly. At one point, I spotted some horses through the fog and snapped a picture. The last stop was at nearly the top of Mt. Aso. From there to the crater rim, we took a ropeway gondola that cost ¥440. It was at the crater rim that things got crazy. The wind was seriously continuously strong and it was pretty cold even by midmorning. There was this one Korean dude that was wearing only a short blue polo shirt that looked like he was as comfortable as in an onsen, though. It was pretty amazing to watch him walk around like nothing was going on. Unfortunately, our view of the crater itself was pretty much obscured by fog and clouds the entire time. We managed to get group shots of us with an exciting cloud in the background. Part of the fun was the stylish hair we came out with. Patrick’s hair was particularly charming when it was wind-swept.

Shortly thereafter we departed from Mt. Aso for Kumamoto to transfer to a train to Nagasaki. Since we were there anyways with nothing to do, we decided to visit Kumamoto castle. It cost ¥500 to get in the front door and the castle itself wasn’t much of a sight. It was pretty similar to the Imperial castle except less grand. There were some interesting things to see, however, such as a ninja performance that we saw the last few minutes of, and the view from the top of a multi-story turret.

The train ride to Nagasaki was almost disastrous. The train we caught was actually two trains joined together for the first segment, which would later separate and head to two separate destinations. Patrick and I got on the front of the train, which was heading towards Nagasaki, but the rest of the crew did not know the train had two halves and went into the latter half of the train, which was bound for Sasebo. It was only with some cell phone calls and a quick scramble at the next stop that we were all safely together in the train headed for Nagasaki.

Our hotel in Nagasaki was really fancy. Of course, we were paying up the wazoo for it. It comes out to $80 per person per night, with 3 people squeezing into a 2-person room. That buys you an English-speaking butler to take you to your room and unlock your door for you. And, unlike in America, you don’t have to tip him. The first thing we did was go out looking for dinner. We found a nice shopping arcade and in the basement was an amazing restaurant, Gyuemon, that served everything from Bimbimbop (the Korean dish) to Hamburg (an American dish??) to steaks to traditional Japanese fare. I was craving meat so I ordered a jumbo New York steak with a rice and soup set, which came to ¥1974. It came steaming on a teppan and was amazingly delicious, so it was well worth it. The desserts were quite amazing too. I didn’t have the stomach for one, but Patrick ordered a parfait that was really pretty.

The night was still young after dinner – it was time for karaoke! It took a while walking around comparing prices but we eventually found a karaoke bar with a good selection that wasn’t too expensive (Shidax) and started singing away at about 10:30PM. We went at it for 2 hours with all sorts of songs from Jason’s rapping of Outcast to Bon Jovi to my attempt at James Blunt’s “You’re Beautiful”. Of course, we ended with tradition – Backstreet Boys. On the way home, Michael realized it was my birthday, and we sang happy birthday on the streets of Nagasaki.

Golden Week Day 4

5/2/07
¥23100 to Pat for 2 nights in Nagasaki ANA hotel and 1 night in Matsuyama hotel
¥100 trolley to JR station
¥670 lunch (chanbon)
¥294 2 pastries from a bakery
¥100 trolley to Nagasaki Peace Park
¥130 Qoo (apple drink)
¥440 for 4 erasers
¥210 fountain pen
¥630 from hyaku-yen store: 1 wire mesh container, DS screen protector, camera screen protector, 1 metal puzzle, 3 puddings, 1 calpico drink
¥1050 kaitenzushi dinner (10 plates)
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¥26724 total

Today was a day to just enjoy Nagasaki. For the first time this trip, we were staying at the same place for two nights in a row. The three of us in my room – Jason, Stephanie, and I – got up at about 12:00PM, just in time to see Patrick and Daryl come back from a morning walk. They went to see the oldest church in Japan and a temple. As a group, we went to the JR station and found lunch nearby at a Chinese restaurant. It was a type of dish called chanbon, which was noodles with lot of Chinese cabbage stew on top. They had these ridiculously large plastic replicas outside where the stew and noodles literally were the size of basketballs. We ordered the dish and it was indeed large, but not as much as we thought. The five of us (Michael didn’t join us) ate a large chanbon and a small one, and 10 dumplings, with lots of room to spare despite the fact that the large chanbon is meant for 4 people. We decided that meant it was meant for 4 Japanese people. We filled ourselves up with bread from a bakery, which is the cheap way to do it.

After lunch, we went to see the Nagasaki Peace Park. The centerpiece is a massive statue of a muscular man meditating with one hand pointing to the heavens and the other hand palm down to the ground. It is meant to signify that the bomb came from the heavens and the other hand points to all the life that lives on the ground. One of his legs is crossed while the other is straight. We thought it would be cool to imitate his pose until we saw everybody, and I mean everybody, else doing it. It is strange how everyone thinks they are being so clever and imitating the pose. I guess it is kind of like how when you meet somebody with an interesting name, you make a joke about it and think you’re being very funny, but that person has undoubtedly heard that joke his or her entire life. There was this one family that had a tripod set up and the entire family was imitating the pose in front of the statue. The dad was not satisfied for the longest time and kept making the family redo the shot, and they were there for probably 10 minutes trying to get it perfect.

We then headed to a nearby monument marking the hypocenter of the nuclear blast. Patrick found a rock and wrote “Peace 2007” on one side and “BSA” on the other to commemorate my birthday. He put the stone on the ledge of a pillar that came from the ruins of Nagasaki after the blast. Visiting the hypocenter was the more moving of the two experiences. The peace park was a celebration of life and had flowers and happy people wandering about, so one did not feel the burden of all the lives lost in the explosion. At the hypocenter, however, the area was minimally decorated and the crowds were sparser. At the site of the hypocenter itself was a bare black monolith, and surrounding it were concentric concrete lines that mirrored the blast radii that would have emanated from the blast. It was then that I felt the lives of those who perished so long ago in the detonation of the atomic bomb.

At night we went out and met up with one of Michael’s friends from high school, Chris, a tall Chinese guy who was on break from studying abroad in China. We had dinner together at a kaitenzushi place, where each plate was only ¥100 (¥105 with tax). The format of kaitenzushi is a central island where the sushi is prepared, surrounded by a conveyor belt and outside of that, tables for the customers. You simply grab whatever you want to eat off of the conveyor belt. I ended up grabbing 10 plates of sushi, from tamago (egg) to tuna to squid and octopus. It was much cheaper than back in the States, where even the most basic plates cost about $2.

To celebrate my 21st birthday, we bought some amaretto and rum and had a party in the hotel room. We made Boccie Balls (amaretto and OJ) and also had coke and rum. Then we played a game called King’s Cup, which had all sorts of obscure and fun rules. It was my first time playing a drinking game and I was miserable at it, but it was a lot of fun. I ended up with the last king, which meant that I had to drink the king’s cup, but by then I had had a fair amount of Boccie Balls and only drank half of it (Jason drank the other half for me). During the game, we made up a rule that no pronouns were allowed – anybody saying a pronoun would have to take a drink. After that, we all talked like cavemen, which was the most hilarious thing when drunk. We ended the night with an improvised club in one of the hotel rooms by turning off the lights and using my laptop to play songs from YouTube. All in all it was a really fun 21st birthday.