かえります – I'm Going Home

I only have two more days left in Nagasaki. On Friday I will leave, probably forever. I am very happy that I have done this, and that my work here is nearly over – because it was hard – but it won't be easy leaving my friends and some of the quirky things about Japan that I have come to take for granted. I'm a little overwhelmed at the moment. I have thought about the journey home a lot in the past six months and now it is two days away – wow. This has felt like a time-out from my life so it might be difficult getting back into the swing of things in England. Still, I don't think English food will taste as good, English weather will feel as refreshing, or the English language will sound as melodic as it will next Monday.

My journey home should work out something like this: I am leaving Nagasaki on Friday morning, getting a bus to Fukuoka airport, then hopping on a plane for Tokyo. I will spend the next three nights in the Tokyo International Youth Hostel in Shinjuku-ku and spend the following two days sightseeing in and around the city. Then first thing on Monday morning, I will go to Narita International Airport and get a 12noon flight to London Heathrow. My Dad is meeting me at the airport and he will drive me back home to Preston. *sighs* It will be a very interesting next few days, I think. May is travelling with me as far as Fukuoka airport. From there she is flying to Korea to spend the next three weeks with some of her relatives there. After that she is coming back to Japan and spending a week in Tokyo, then flying back home to Vancouver. I am going to miss her a lot.

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Random photograph: Below is a photo of my favourite road sign. Many of you may not have a favourite road sign but I do. According to this sign, there are only two things you need to worry about: Nagasaki, which is two kilometres underground, and Hirado, which is one hundred and nine kilometres up in the sky. The Most Informative Sign in the World is situated about 2km from Nagasaki train station, which I suppose is the centre if the city. But really, if you hadn't figured out which city you were in until you were that close to the centre, then a sign that says you either need to start digging or head upward to Hirado (apparently your only other option) is surely just going to cause more confusion.

Placement Summary

I was asked by Kimura-san to write an article for the hospital newspaper, summarizing my placement in Nagasaki. Here is it, spelling and grammatical errors included:

Something To Tell The Grandchildren

I was told by many people before I came here that the six months I was due to spend in Japan would fly by at an alarming speed. At first I didn't believe them but now, looking back, they were absolutely right. It was a shock to the system initially, being thrown into the middle of a Japanese hospital, but so many of the staff tried to welcome May and I as warmly as they could that we soon started to feel not like temporary volunteers, but as members of the hospital. It was this fact that made my placement so enjoyable and it is this fact that makes me sad to be leaving Nagasaki.

Since coming to Japan I have encountered many things for the first time. It has been a long series of firsts after another, in fact. This was the first time I have lived alone and in a foreign country, the first time I have had a full-time job, and the first time I have put my life in the hands of a fugu chef (the latter causing much trepidation among my family). Being constantly confronted by things that were unfamiliar to me was very difficult at times, but equally, very rewarding. It has encouraged me to be less inhibited, more open-minded and more fearless.

There have been many wonderful and exciting events in the past half a year that I will always remember fondly. Some of the highlights for me are as follows:

● Seeing Nagasaki's O Kunchi Matsuri – it was definitely worth waking up early for!
● Travelling to Kumamoto for the Kyushu Red Cross Sports Competition – I was proud to cheer for my hospital, especially after seeing many of the staff consume an impressive amount of alcohol during the bus journey and opening ceremony.
● Watching a surgical procedure for the first time – and the second, and the third... Thank you to all of the surgeons and surgical nurses who allowed me to peer over their shoulders on the numerous occasions I managed to make my way into the surgery room.
● Bonenkai – Need I say more?

Of course, it wasn't all road trips and parties, May and I worked a little bit too. We worked in the nurses stations, the pharmacy, radiology, test department, operation room, kitchen, medical matters and nursery. Having a schedule that had me working in a range of departments not only meant I got to see a variety of things and contribute in a variety of ways, but it also meant I got to meet and befriend many people. Although my work at the hospital has been important to me and, I think, character-building, it is the people that I will remember. It is the people that I will miss. Thank you... for everything. You know who you all are, so I won't embarrass anyone by mentioning names. The phrase, “so much to do, so little time” comes to mind though. May and I were swamped with invitations to visit people's homes or have dinner with them and unfortunately it just wasn't possible to fulfill them all. It was very flattering to be extended so many invitations, although I am not sure I deserve half the amount of kindness that I have received here.

This has been without a doubt, the most challenging, enjoyable and gratifying time of my life. I will never forget Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Hospital and the people who devote so much of their time and energy to it. Nagasaki has become like a second home to me now and I would not chose another place to spend my gap year even if I could. And who knows, maybe I will come back at some point in the future for a visit...

宮島 - Miyajima

After having breakfast at the hotel in Hiroshima last Wednesday (13th February), I went to the Tourist Information Centre located in the Peace Park to buy a one-day tram and ferry travel pass. For ¥840 this allows you unlimited travel on both the trams and ferries in Hiroshima, meaning I could get to the tram stop at the ferry terminal from central Hiroshima, get a ferry to the island, a ferry back, and another tram back into the city centre all on this one ticket. Smashing.

This is the island of Miyajima, seen from the ferry on the way over:
One of the reasons I decided to visit Hiroshima during my busy schedule was so that I could come to Miyajima. Miyajima was what clinched the decision for me. I have always wanted to come here and see the famous floating torii of the Itsukushima Jinja (Itsukushima shrine). I think I wrote a post about it back in August 2007 so I won't regurgitate the same information about the island's history here.

The first thing you notice as you get off the ferry is the herd of the tamest deer you have ever seen. Having spent the past six months trying to befriend my local stray cats with zero success, to see these wonderfully tame deer was incredible. I resisted going up to them and touching them like some of the other tourists though because I had read that a) they will head-butt you if they feel like it and b) they like to eat clothing, bags, whatever they can get their teeth into.

A few of the pack:
A ten-minute walk from the ferry terminal put me right in front of it, the floating torii. It was breathtaking seeing it in person after spending so long looking at it in photographs. I was lucky enough to see it at a semi-high tide so it did actually appear to be floating on water rather than mud.
The only other thing that I wanted to do on the island was to get the ropeway (cable car) to the top of the highest mountain on Miyajima, Misen-yama (Mt. Misen), 530m. A return ropeway journey set me back ¥1800, nearly ¥1000 more than the cost of travel to and from the island, but it turned out to be money very well spent. Oddly, it was snowing quite heavily on the way up (and down) but at the summit it was clear and sunny.... hmm? Here's the view that was worth every last yen:

And if there was any doubt remaining about the money, this really made it indisputable:
Not only was there a pack of monkeys who were hanging around the ropeway station (sorry for the pun), but they were semi-tame too! You could get within a metre or two of them and they didn't mind being photographed at all. As is never surprising with monkeys, they were just as curious in you as you are with them. They were especially cute when about ten of them would huddle up together for warmth (it may have been sunny up there but, boy, was it chilly).

And that was Miyajima. I arrived back in Hiroshima at around 3pm so it was a very easy day trip. A short blog post like this doesn't do it justice. It was one of the highlights of my trip to Honshu though, it really was. Torii, deer, monkeys, mountain view... fantatstic.

広島 - Hiroshima

I arrived at Hiroshima station at around 1:30pm on Tuesday 12th February. With a hotel already in mind after some internet research prior to travelling, I set out on foot down Ekimae-dōri (which translates as 'the street in front of the station'). Immediately, I was taken by how beautiful a city Hiroshima was. Spacious, tree-lined streets... gorgeous river... it reminded me, interestingly, of Nagasaki. Kyoto was lovely, of course, but enormously different from my home city in Kyushu.

A ten minute walk saw Ekimae-dōri become Heiwa-Odōri, or Peace Boulevard, the main street in Hiroshima. The hotel I was looking for was just a couple more minutes walk from there. It is called the Toyoko Inn and is one of a chain of business hotels found in all the major cities of Japan. I stayed in the Toyoko Inn in Kumamoto with the rest of the team who went on the Red Cross sports trip back in November. It was from this experience that I knew I would like the hotel in Hiroshima and since it was in the perfect location for my purposes, I decided to go for it. It was almost exactly the same price as the ryokan in Kyoto incidentally.
Check-in wasn't until four pm so I left my rucksack behind the reception desk and went exploring. I came across this:
Now, is it me or does it appear that this duck is reading a newspaper whilst sitting on an invisible toilet?

After about an hour of wandering around I got a sudden craving for some curry, so I changed my objective to seeking out a curry house. Today really was my lucky day, as I stumbled upon this restaurant after only a few minutes of looking:
“Good Smell. Good curry”. Sounds good enough for me, I thought.

After settling in at the hotel for a while, I went out again and made the ten minute walk to Heiwa Kōen (Peace Park). I particularly wanted to see the Genbaku Dōmu (A-Bomb Dome). I had first seen pictures of it many years before during history lessons at school and was struck then by its desperate appearance. Being only a matter of metres from the hypocentre, it managed to stay standing because it was subjected to primarily downward rather than horizontal forces. It is now a Unesco World Heritage site.


The cenotaph, containing the names of all the known victims of the bomb. Each year at the memorial service the names of all the hibakusha (atomic-bomb survivors) who have died in the past year are added to it. Last year over 5000 more names were added.

The Children's Peace Memorial, inspired by the leukaemia victim Sadako, who believed if she folded a thousand paper cranes, her wish to be cured would come true. She died before she reached 1000, but her efforts inspired children across the world to fold cranes in the hope of one day achieving peace.
The monument for the Korean victims of the bomb. One in ten of the victims of the bomb were Korean, largely due to the fact thousands were forced into coming to Japan for slave labour by the Japanese during the war.
I had been warned that Kyoto was extremely cold at the moment but compared to Hiroshima, ha! I woke up on Wednesday morning to this image from my hotel window:
A blizzard, by English standards! And a little later, after breakfast:
Wednesday was the day I had planned to go to the island of Miyjima as a day trip and I wasn't going to let a little snow stop me. I left the hotel wearing all the clean clothes I had left in my bag, ready to spend most of the day outside. I'll talk about Miyajima in a separate post because there's quite a lot to say.

I got back from Miyajima in the late afternoon, with just enough time to see the Hiroshima Prefectural Art Museum. This museum is only given one line in my Lonely Planet guide book, but that was enough to convince me to see it. “... Featuring Salvador Dali's Dream of Venus...” The Salvador Dali?! The Dream of Venus?! The painting lived up to its expectations without a doubt. It was truly amazing. There were some other wonderful paintings there too, many by Japanese artists. I enjoy admiring artwork, but sometimes there is just too much to look at for me, too much to try and appreciate. This was quite a small museum however, so that suited me very well.

I woke up bright and early again the following day, Thursday. No snow this time though. After breakfast in the hotel lobby and after checking out I went back to Heiwa Kōen to see the Atomic Bomb Museum. Needless to say, it was very moving. It was also very informative. I learned that, unlike Nagasaki which aimed to simply rebuild after the destruction of the bomb, Hiroshima was given a make-over too. The streets were widened, trees were planted (many of which were donated from various places from across the globe). They wanted Hiroshima to become The City of Peace and so it had to look like it. From spending three days there, I think they did a very good job. It is a really beautiful city and a lovely place to explore on foot.
To get home to Nagasaki I had to first travel to Fukuoka/Hakata. I worked out that if I went by Shinkansen to Fukuoka and then by train to Nagasaki, it would cost me well over ¥12,000, but it would only take me four hours (excluding the time it would take to change trains). I then worked out that taking a bus all the way back, changing at Fukuoka, would take me seven hours but would only cost ¥6500. I decided to go for the latter. I had already finished everything I wanted to do in Hiroshima and sitting on a long-distance bus for the afternoon, listening to my ipod and enjoying the scenery didn't sound that bad to me. And if I would be saving ¥6000 too, then all the better. After a small glitch early on, involving me getting on the wrong bus, I had a very easy journey home. It was wonderful seeing my apartment again, lying on my bed, playing on my laptop. After five days and 1700km of travelling Japan, I was absolutely exhausted. I ate some dinner, put my camera on to charge and fell asleep.

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Next, Lily Goes To Miyajima.

京都 - Kyoto

Wow. Where do I begin? Since I last posted, my Mum has come and gone, I have ridden the Shinkansen ('Bullet Train') across Japan and I have seen Kyoto, Hiroshima and Miyajima. Well, let's do things in chronological order, shall we?

So, my Mum came to visit me in Nagasaki. I went to meet her at Nagasaki airport (the runway of which stretches out into Ōmura Bay) on Sunday 3rd February. We then spent the next six days in Nagasaki shopping, eating, sightseeing and socialising with some of my friends here. Her and May got on really well and everyone I introduced her to loved her. I took her to the hospital to meet some of the people I work with and about 75% tried to speak in English for her sake, even though only about 25% actually speak in English. There was a bit of laughing about the lack of a common language but that made everyone smile that little bit more to compensate.

It was nice showing my Mother my home turf here in Japan, but we had previously decided that we would travel a bit together too. On Sunday 10th February we woke up bright and early, said sayonara ('goodbye') to May and headed for Nagasaki Station. We got on a train to Fukuoka/Hakata (which took 2 hours) and there hopped onto an Hikari Shinkansen bound for Tokyo. We got off at Shin-Ōsaka Station and changed for a Shinkansen going through Kyoto. In a total of five hours travelling time we had travelled 854km, and the first 174 took two hours on the regular train. It was very impressive but a little weird travelling on the Shinkansen. If you imagine a film clip taken from a moving train and then imagine speeding it up and watching it in fast-forward, that was what it was like. Anyway, here's the Shinkansen we caught Hakata to Ōsaka:
After navigating Kyoto Station (which is the train station equivalent of a mystical labyrinth by the way) I managed to book us two nights in a traditional Japanese Ryokan (Inn).

It was a lovely little hotel. It was quite expensive but there was no arguing that we were travelling the Japanese way now. Plus, a large and delicious breakfast was thrown in. Can't argue with that. Aaaand do you see that table in the second photo... well, it has a heater built into it. You slide your legs under and it keeps your feet toasty while you enjoy a cup of ocha (tea) and an okashi (cake). Bliss.

The following day I headed out to Fushimi-Inari Taisha, a Shinto shrine in the South-east outskirts of Kyoto. Although many of you might not recognise the name, some of you might recognise the place:


The shrine is dedicated to the Gods of rice and sake (Japanese rice wine) and is the main Inari shrine out of the 30,000 dotted across Japan. Needless to say, it is very popular with tourists and when I arrived there at around 10:30am it was packed. Even so, the beauty of this famous shrine was undeniable. The torii-lined pathway extends 4km up the mountain, Inari-yama. I didn't walk the entire 4km. As much as I was enjoying the stroll under the torii, the prospect of an 8km trek in the middle of February didn't appeal. Besides, I would be leaving Kyoto the next day and I still had some more sightseeing to do.

Next I went to Gion, the traditional entertainment district of Kyoto. It was here that I stood my best chance of seeing a real-life Geisha, as they still wander the streets here on their way to and from appointments. In a stroke of pure luck, I stumbled upon a Geisha posing for some photographers after being in Gion for only five minutes. Jackpot:
I stopped on the walk back to the Ryokan at the Kamo river. It was turning into a beautiful evening and what with the distant mountains and the river birds and the buildings of Kyoto on all sides of me, I decided to sit on the bank for a while and read some of my book.

After another night in the Ryokan, Mum and I went back to Kyoto Station. There we said goodbye. She got on a Shinkansen for Tokyo and I got on a local train to Shin-Ōsaka, and from there took a Shinkansen to Hiroshima. Mum is flying back to England from Tokyo Narita Airport today. I have been in Hiroshima for the past three days so I don't know what she got up to in Tokyo, but if her time in Nagasaki is anything to go by, it probably involved a lot of shopping :-)

Stay tuned for the next instalment, where Lily Goes To Hiroshima.