2007⼿ 9⽉ 9⽈ - 9/9/07

It's all go here in Nagasaki. My first few days in Japan have had me feeling a vast mix of emotions, some good and some bad. All of the bad ones so far however, I am tackling with a positive attitude and that seems to be paying off.

Here's a couple of quirky things about the Japanese that have already come to my attention:
● They can sleep almost anywhere, and do. If you get on a Japanese train, bus or tram you will see that about 30% of the passengers are seemingly asleep. This is a useful skill on the bustling public transport in Japan. On that, so many people use public transport because it is so good and efficient, and apart from the possibility of standing in a confined (but air-conditioned) space for the duration of your journey, Japanese public transport cannot be beaten.
● They carry little face towels around with them to wipe the sweat from their foreheads. It is encouraging to a humble foreigner knowing that the natives are hot too and that they sweat in this weather too. I have followed in their footsteps and started carrying round a face towel of my own. I didn't even have to buy it since the apartment I am staying in is provided with face cloths, dish cloths and sponges.
● The women here walk around with their umbrellas up when it's sunny. Again, I have taken to doing this myself (the ¥105 umbrella I bought in Tokyo broke after a day, so I bought a much better and nicer one after I arrived in Nagasaki – it's a really cute pink one). This was the first time I have come across people using umbrellas to shade themselves, and it made me think back to my childhood when I thought those sun umbrellas in Jane Austin films looked so novel.

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Yesterday May and I went shopping to celebrate our arrival at our placement. We walked to one of the major department stores which was about 3-4km away from our accommodation and arrived there at 09:30, forgetting that Japanese department stores usually open at ten. To kill time, we bought a cold drink each. I decided to use the opportunity to try Calpis (pronounced cow-piss). It turned out to be quite nice, like a mixture of calpol and milk, although that description makes it sound awful.



After half an hour we went in and were greeted by dozens of shop assistants all at once, shouting irrashaimase (welcome) and bowing deeply. I felt like royalty! It was great. We then shopped for about an hour, ate lunch and shopped for another two hours. As well as groceries, we bought a pair of indoor slippers that we needed for our apartments.



Yes, they're ugly, but hey they were cheap (¥390 - £1.65).

Then... we moved onto the clothes section, mwah ha ha! Both of us realised that we had packed for colder weather than it turned out to be - at least that was our justification for buying clothes on the first day. May bought a pair of shorts and a shirt, and I bought two shirts. It was nice and easy finding my size, which was a nice surprise. It turns out that I am Japanese medium. Good to know.

The expensive one, ¥1596 - £6.80:



The cheap one, ¥500 - £2.15:



I don't think this is the prettiest shirt ever but I couldn't resist the Engrish. Diamond...Your smile that a glitter wins... reflects in the surface... shine kindly. Oh, I will shine kindly, don't you worry.