Nagasaki

Kyoto is a tourist place.  So, logically, I saw many tourists a there.  And a lot of  the people who lived there were able to speak English enough for me to get by.  But Nagasaki is a bit off the beaten path.  In other words, I only saw a handful of tourists while I was there, and not as many people spoke English.  There we're a few instances where the people in the shops I went to were talking to me, and I really wanted to know what they were saying, but I couldn't understand.  Sigh.  And despite my learning some Japanese, I was unable to ask some of the quests I wanted to (as if I could have understood the answers very well anyway).  So, a few times I just stood there quietly like a moron since I didn't study Japanese enough.  --_--
There are lots of vending machines in Japan.  At least one on most of the streets I walked down. Often more than that, in the shopping areas.  
And there are a lot of souvenir places.  All over the place.  And each city has it's own trademark souvenirs.  For example in Kyoto, it was these little mochi triangles with red bean inside (I think).   In Nagasaki, it was castellas (a sort of cake) and biwa (the loquats I was geeking out about before).  Mmmm, loquats.  I want a loquat tree.  

On Friday, I went to a little zoo thing near Ellen's apartment.  It made me appreciate our zoos a lot more.  I got to see monkeys and their babies, but they we're in a cage that seemed too small for them, and some of them were missing fur.   I don't  know much about monkey health, but I do know about rabbits.  And those rabbits weren't in good shape.  Several of them were missing fur, and one had a big lump against his jaw.  And several of them had their ears partly or completely chewed off.  Poor little guys...  and still they came up to say hi to me.  
There was a little workshop near a museum, and I actually got to make a little stained glass rose for the equivalent of $4.  That was cool.  You actually use a really hot metal rod to melt off pieces of silver and fuse the glass together. 
And I walked around the Megane Bashi Bridge, one of the land marks of Nagasaki that I'd passed several times before.  There are a bunch off beautiful koi fish upstream. 

On Saturday, I went to the atomic bomb museum.  Maaan, that was depressing, seeing all the twisted, melted things recovered from the wreckage and reading the different accounts of survivors.  There was even a pine tree growing outside that had survived the blast.  I'm amazed that humans are still alive, with that kind of destructive technology.  Hopefully it will never be used again...  
I went to the memorial hall of the bomb victims and folded a paper crane.  They seem to string them together and hang them around the hall.  I drew ferns on the wings of my crane.  Heheh.  
There's a big monument At the epicenter of where the bomb went off.  It was definitely strange to stand there and think of what it was like when that thing exploded.  Especially since everything is so lively now.  
Peace Park was next, and i saw the peace statue.   But when I tried to get back to the shuttle, I kind of got lost. I didn't realize the tram tracks curved, and I took off in completely the wrong direction.  I made this huge pointless loop through the neighborhoods, and finally got to a sign pointing me back to the museum.  Then this guy with a (British?) accent asked me if I was lost, and he pointed me towards a closer tram station.  Thank you!!  
I went to a martial arts class with Ellen after she got back from work.  It s called kempo.  It was fun to do martial arts again, but I had to relearn some of the stuff I learned in my tae Kwon do class. 

Sunday!  Ellen and I went to an onsen.  It was a good day for it, because it was cloudy and not too hot.  It was a cool experience, and all the different tubs were fun to try, but it was rather awkward...  
And we looked for beach glass too.  There was a tone of it, since I guess they don't really gather it in Japan.  Not only was there beach glass, but also beach pottery - little pieces of bowl, or something, that had parts of patterns or pictures on them.  That was fun.  But is started to pour on us while we were out there.  We had to huddle together under my little umbrella and head back to the onsen.  
Ellen looked at some of the pictures I took before I met her in Kyoto.  Turns out that I saw three geishas.  You can tell because the backs of their collars are low-cut.  
Back at the city, we took a tram to the top of a mountain to get a view of Nagasaki.  It's one of the best night views in the world, I think, because of the lights of the city.  And it definitely was beautiful.  

Monday:  left Nagasaki this morning and said bye to Ellen.  I'm now on the Shinkansen, heading up to Tokyo for a couple more days.  We'll see if I have a chance to update again before I head home.  

Whoo!  Ghibli Museum soon!  

For the record, it's 50 times more fun traveling with a friend.