Gomen Ne - Sorry

Hi Everyone. Sorry I haven't posted anything since getting back to the UK, but when I said I would, that was before I got a job and decided to study for my driving test and enter to run a marathon, among other things. Part of it is probably laziness too, if I am honest. I am getting used to my life here again. Japan seems years ago now. If I get round to it, I'll try and finish off a few posts I have in my head but if it doesn't happen it doesn't happen. After I find out in October if I have a place in the 2009 London Marathon this blog might require a name change to Lily Runs The Marathon. Fingers crossed...

東京 – Tokyo

I left Nagasaki last Friday morning. (Wow, has it already been a week?) May and I treated ourselves to breakfast at Mos Burger, we said goodbye to everyone at the dormitory and then we got on a bus together, bound for Fukuoka Airport. Those three hours on the bus were both happy and sad. We were on our way home but that meant we were leaving each other and leaving a lot of great things behind in Nagasaki too.

Since May was flying to Seoul, we got off at the International Terminal. From there I had to take a free shuttle bus to the domestic terminal. I said goodbye to May here, which was obviously very sad. We are both so determined to see each other again though, it didn't really feel like goodbye.
The bus pulled away and the 'Sayonara' ending song from Howl's Moving Castle played on my ipod.

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The flight to Tokyo was fine. It took took two hours, so it basically felt like we went up and straight back down again. I arrived in Tokyo in the early evening and I was aware that it would be getting dark soon, so I ignored my hunger and fatigue and headed for my youth hostel. This involved two train changes which, with a suitcase, rucksack, handbag and paper and bamboo Japanese umbrella for my sister, was quite an effort. It wasn't fun navigating Tokyo's rail network with all this luggage, but what choice did I have? Given the vast quantities of food I had eaten in the preceding two weeks (due to the numerous farewell dinners and a commitment to finish all the food in my apartment) I thought the exercise was probably not a bad thing. Still, my19kg suitcase was quite a beast to haul on and off trains. I managed to time my journey to perfection though, as I just caught the last glimpses of a Tokyo sunset, the sun sinking behind Fuji-san (Mt. Fuji), leaving the famous volcano burning terracotta red on the horizon.

Seeing my youth hostel was such a relief. I stayed in a different one when I first arrived in Japan in September but it was in the same area (Shinjuku-ku) and when the building looks like this:
...how could I possibly miss it? Checked-in, found my room: more relief. When I read 'dormitory-style rooms' on the youth hostel website, I started preparing myself for three nights of disturbed, public sleep. So seeing this was just wonderful:
Curtains! And a reading lamp! Privacy, yay! As it happened, I didn't need them that much since the other people in the room turned out to be... well, ok, first, one of the girls, Lee Anna, I already knew. (I know, what are the chances?!) She was one of the Gappers who came to Tokyo back in September. She had spent the past six months working in Kumamoto and now, like me, was stopping in Tokyo briefly on her way back home (to Vancouver). The girl in the bed above me, Danielle, was also a Gapper, but she was just starting her placement. There was also an American from Georgia with a voice like honey and an Australian snowboarder from Perth. We all got on really well and chatted a lot over the next few days about our respective homes and experiences.

Danielle and I clicked particularly well, so we ended up doing some sightseeing together. This was such a wonderful relief. I was expecting to spend three days alone in Tokyo in a sort of limbo, since I didn't want to leave Japan but I wanted to go home. Spending time with someone who I got on well with and who was in the exact same situation as I was six months ago then, was fantastic.

The first day I was there though, Saturday March 1st, I went on a day-trip alone to see Fuji-san. I took a 2-hour bus to Kawaguchi-ko (Lake Kawaguchi), walked around the town a bit and went up to a viewing platform to see the volcano. It was a lovely little day trip, but unfortunately some cloud had settled in over Fuji-san this was the view I got:
It was actually a little clearer than this photo but still, I had seen more impressive sights in Japan. Well, maybe I am being a little harsh. It's size was extraordinary. I was truly colossal. I definitely felt like I was looking at a volcano too, so that was quite cool.

The lake:

After a slightly longer than expected return journey – there was a problem with the bus so we had to wait on the side of the road for another one to come and blah blah blah – I got back to the youth hostel at around 4:30 and I was just shattered. I managed to make it down to the convenience store to buy some food, but after that I didn't leave the hostel that day. I had a bath, read, chatted with the girls for a while, then fell asleep.

The next day I felt I could take things at a more leisurely pace, having no long-distance bus journeys to fit in. This was when Danielle and I went off together, hopping from one site to the next. We went to Harajuku, Tsukiji and the Imperial Palace. We may have gone to a few other places too but they kind of all blend into one in my memory. Tsukiji was my favourite. There is a giant fish market there, where the first catch of the day are brought and sold. Surrounding it are scores of sushi and sashimi restaurants which sell some of the freshest (i.e. finest) fish in Japan. It is apparently best first thing in the morning but we chose being slightly lazy over getting the best of the best sushi and went there for lunch. We were fortunate enough to bump into a man handing out discount leaflets for the restaurant where he worked, so we each got ¥500 off our lunch. I ended up paying ¥360 (£1.75) for some absolutely delicious sushi. Yum yum.

After lunch we walked to the Imperial Palace and had a stroll through the gardens. It was nice enough but certainly not one my favourite sights in Japan. I did enjoying walking around Tokyo a little though. Usually, you just travel by train or metro because that is the quickest and easiest way to get somewhere, but we both had the time to walk and the weather was lovely so why not?

I didn't go out in the evening, the same as the previous two nights. I was just so exhausted. Plus, there wasn't anything else in Tokyo that I desperately wanted to see. You may have gathered by now that I wasn't all that impressed with Tokyo, even after a second visit. Perhaps if I liked to go clubbing all night and shopping all day, it would be more my kind of city, but I am a bit of a geek and I like sightseeing and exploring. The sights I found a bit of a let down and Tokyo is too big to explore on foot really. The buildings were remarkably tall, I'll give Tokyo that. Like, you have to strain your neck to see the top of them.
I had to wake up early on the morning of Monday March 3rd for my flight back to England. Lee Anna and Danielle got up for my departure (Danielle even helped me with my luggage to the lobby) so yet again, I found myself saying goodbye to friends I had made in Japan. Leaving the youth hostel, catching the trains to the airport, checking in... all of it I did in a state of numbness. It didn't feel real. It was too significant a day for me to take everything in. The twelve-hour flight went remarkably smoothly, and time didn't drag as you might expect it would. I highly recommend Virgin Atlantic. They were great. Each passenger has their own TV screen and there is such a vast choice of entertainment it was impossible to watch everything I wanted to. I only slept for about an hour and still I couldn't make it through all the episodes of Family Guy they had on offer.

Bang. Tires touch down on English tarmac. Home.

As I was walking to the baggage carousel, I heard someone calling my name behind me. I turned around and it was Lucy, yet another Gapper whom I had already met and who had just finished her placement. She was partnered with Lee Anna in Kumamoto, as it happened. Lucy had been on the same plane as me for the past half a day and it was only as we were getting off that we met. It's a funny world, isn't it? We talked about our experiences at break-neck speed to try and fit everything in, as we only had the time it took to collect our luggage and go through passport control before we had to separate again.

Seeing my Dad for the first time in six months, there waiting for me in arrivals.... it goes without saying that it was... I can't come up with a good enough word to describe it. He had told me on the phone the week before that he would be wearing his red winter coat so I could spot him easily in the crowd, so one of the first things he said to me was, “Can I take my coat off now? It's sweltering in here”. Good to be back, Dad.

Dad and I left Lucy to find her Mum and we got in Dad's car – how good it was to see that little blue Nissan again! - and hit the road. Destination: Preston, Lancashire. From London this was a four-hour drive, but that felt like nothing compared to the amount of travelling I had done recently. Dad and I talked all the way home. It was a fantastic four hours, made even better by the goody bag of English food my Dad had prepared for me. Pringles, Iced Gem and Haribo Fizzy Mix have never tasted so good.

My house looks almost exactly the same as when I left it in September. The only difference I can spot is a new bath mat. Even all of my fish are still alive! The people have changed a bit. My sister is now seventeen and looking more and more like an adult – albeit, a rather unique one – by the day. My eldest brother is deep in his studies and has a new girlfriend, who he seems to utterly adore. My other brother came back from university in Coventry for the weekend and he is more well-built and balder than I remember. He had obviously shaved his head very recently, I like to think for my return :-)
There has been a lot of gift-giving and catching up, and still plenty more to go too. I am settling back down into my English life nicely and am already working on my Post-Japan To Do list. The priority on there is finding a job so that I can start earning and paying my Dad back for my Japan trip. The grand total spent on this whole Japan experience was... drum roll, please... £4113, ¥848,771. Out of that, I owe my Dad £2388. That's not too bad, certainly not as much as I was expecting. And for what I got out of it, it was worth every single penny.

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There is still more to come on this blog. There are a few things I didn't get a chance to write about at the time they happened, so I'm going to be going back in time a bit to catch up. Stay tuned.

I am back in England now, back in Preston. Everything is a little weird. In some ways it feels as though I never left but in others... wow. It isn't that living in England again is strange, but rather that not living in Japan is strange. Of course, I can't have both so I will just have to get used to this place. There is so much to tell about my journey home but I am too tired to go into it all now. So there is still more to come; This blog isn't over yet!

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.