グラバー - Glover Garden

A few weeks ago May and I ventured down to the southern end of Nagasaki to visit the Glover Garden, named after Thomas Glover (1838-1911), who is famed for building the first train line in Japan and establishing the first modern shipyard. The former homes of some of the other pioneering European residents of Nagasaki have also been reassembled in this hillside garden. Well, that's enough of re-wording my travel guide. It was essentially a pretty garden, interspersed with a collection of European-style houses – not very interesting to a European – some ponds filled with carp, and a great view of the harbour. It was nice and all – pleasant, perhaps is a better word – but not all that interesting to me from a historical perspective, which I think was it's aim.

Oh yeah, Madame Butterfly was there too, see:

There was also a room dedicated to her in one of the houses, which had on display her kimono, elaborate hair pieces, fan and bamboo umbrella. Very pretty. I thought it was a nice touch that they had a recording of Madame Butterfly playing in the background.

Check out these guys:

Now what I want to know is did the sculptor see the turtles sitting like this before he made his turtle statue, or did the turtles see the statue in their pond and say to each other, “hey, you know what would be funny...”

You exit the garden via a museum displaying floats from the Kunchi Matsuri, which are even more magnificent close up. After that you have to go down a little sloped street lined with omiyage (souvenir) shops to get to the main road again. Among the castella's (I'll talk more about those later) and your average Japanese souvenirs (fans, chopsticks, pottery) there was also... Scottish shortbread. And to think, I was going to bring that from England as a gift for my Japanese friends here.

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May spotted some kind of fair from the viewing platform at the top of the garden and it still being early in the day, we decided to go down and take a look after we had finished with Glover. (We were hoping there might be some interesting food opportunities). You'll never guess what it turned out to be... a motorbike rally.

There's a lesson to be learned here: You never know what you might stumble upon while you are out and about in Japan.

ばんごはん – Dinner

It turned out that I had nothing to worry about with our dinner invite on Friday. It was as far from the whole-hospital-invited party that I feared it might be as you could get.... only five of us: the hospital vice-president, a nurse from the ENT department, Kimurasan, May and me. I am embarrassed to admit that I have forgotten the names of both the vice-president and the nurse. Shame on me, I know!



That's the vice-president sat on the left of the photo, Kimurasan in the middle, and the ENT nurse on the right.

From the hospital May and I were taken by street car to the Best Western Premier Nagasaki Hotel, which, as you might imagine with a name like that, has a five-star rating. The restaurant (called 'The Kitchen') was on the 15th and top floor. The view was amazing. Just amazing. I had heard that Nagasaki has one of the best night views in Japan and now I can believe that unquestioningly. I took pictures but they really didn't capture it, so I won't bother posting them here.

The meal itself was great. It turned out to be an authentic Japanese buffet. The Japanese word for buffet is, believe it or not, Viking (pronounced Biking). You can see how May and I got so confused when beforehand we were told it was a 'Biking' restaurant we would be going to. Anyway, the food was sensational. My favourite thing by far was the sashimi (thin slices of raw fish, in this case in a light marinade). The salmon sashimi was particularly good. Mm, sashimi.

To top off the wonderful food, we had some really great conversation with our hosts. It was during a dessert of ice cream, tiramisu and sesame seed cake that it happened. We were talking about what May and I wanted to do in the future, as in what careers we wanted to pursue, when the vice-president turned to me and the following words came from his mouth: You know, you can watch a surgery if you want to...

...My jaw dropped....

...I seriously could not believe it for a second. I had to ask him twice if I had heard him correctly. Me? Watch a surgery?! 'Yes, yes, yes, I would love to!' I was so shocked that I forgot to ask for details: When? What procedure? Which surgeon? From the gallery or - *gasps* - inside the operating theatre? Oh man, I'm getting so excited just thinking about it. I feel like Meredith Grey. No, actually, probably more like George O'Malley. (Sorry, for the non 'Grey's Anatomy' fans, I feel like a surgical intern, that's all you need to know).... Awe.Some.

We wound things up around 8:45 and May and I got a taxi home with the nurse. We didn't spend a single Yen all evening – the vice-president paid for everything. Of course we were incredibly grateful for this and showed our appreciation in the traditional Japanese way, by saying gochisou sama deshita (“that was a lovely meal”). We have been invited to another dinner in a few weeks; I am not nervous at all about this next one now :-)