Author: wigken05

English below.

先週に長崎市へ行きました。楽しかったです。私は電車で長崎まで行きました。電車は八時に乗りました。あそこに友達は会いました。

私たちは電車後にコーヒーを飲みて、昼ご飯で中国の食べ物を食べました。おいしかったでした。でも、肉まんのぼうがちゃんぽんよりおいしいです。

次、グラバー園やきれい長崎の海を見ました。グラバー園から長崎のすべてを目えますよ。

私たちは夜に稲佐山を登って、温泉行きました。朝の日曜日にトラムで平和公園まで行きました。平和公園はかなしいです、でも重要です。北九州に戻ってくる前して、私たちは晩ご飯がインドの食べ物を食べました。でも、辛くないでした。

私は長崎が大好きです。休みの後は眠いでした。

長崎に帰りまたいます。

Last week I visited Nagasaki. I really enjoyed my time there. I took the train along the coast, leaving the house at 8 in the morning. I met up with my friends when I arrived. After taking the train we got coffee and then went to visit the Nagasaki China Town for lunch, I had steamed pork bun (nikuman) and Champon (noodles with loads of toppings), both were nice, but I much preferred the simple pork but. Champon had a wee bit too much going on for my liking. Next, we visited Glover Gardens, and the sea near Japan. Glover Garden has amazing views of all of Nagasaki, I really enjoyed it, and not only because it’s a small slice of Scotland in Japan. In at the night be climb Mt. Inasa, and took an onsen on the mountain, which was amazing. Beautiful views of the city below, and the sky above. On Sunday morning we took a tram over to the Peace Park, which was a sombre, but important place. It was certainly interesting. Before returning to Kitakyushu we ate at an Indian restaurant, but the food wasn’t that spicy. I really liked Nagasaki. I was very tired after my trip. I want to return to Nagasaki.

It’s still winter, despite the change in season creeping along slowly. Christmas now seems as distant as it did in in July. I’m happy to see the back end of it. When I reflect mostly on my Tokyo trip the sensation I feel is mostly one of numbness, mainly for the season, but also for the sensation of feeling lost. Even now six months in, and I fail to recognise the skyline, or the shapes the roads make between my home and the supermarket, my school, the Starbucks by the castle.  I’m determined to escape more, to walk around on foot. I’ve done so little of that since coming to Japan. There should be so much here that I can see, yet I’ve done so little of it. I want that to change.

Personal projects though are moving. I’m writing a fantasy novel as a kind of exercise. ‘Straight’ fiction will have to wait, when I write I write grey. But with fantasy I want to let loose. But even then, I feel the prose beginning to take itself too seriously.

Music too is progressing, I’ve written tracks, and I’m starting to develop and idea in my mind for a concept nihon no tenki, I may purchase a field mic soon and go collecting. Very recently I’ve been listening to the music of Bonobo, it’s from him I’m taking inspiration.

Always endeavouring.

Ken,　北九州

I decided, somewhat late into December, to book a trip to Tokyo over the Christmas weekend. With the majority of my friends going abroad or visiting family on that weekend I felt I didn’t really want to be left behind in my cold flat alone over the Christmas weekend. I decided in the end that it would be much better to be lonely in Tokyo, with enough bright lights and distractions to keep myself occupied than it would be in Kokura.

I had to travel to Fukuoka for my flight, a short Shinkansen ride to Hakata station. I left the night before my flight and booked a cheap hotel. Fukuoka is a city that I’m now familiar with, though not always comfortable in. A few of my friends who live there have a good knack for finding the interesting secrets and good places to hang out and dine, but I haven’t quite managed that yet. The flight itself was unremarkable, apart from the fact I decided to walk to the station (strong winds causing trouble on the subway line). When I arrived, I found myself on the wrong side of the airport, and so I had to catch a taxi to the domestic terminal. I arrived with fifteen minutes to spare.  But other than that, I arrived in Tokyo Narita without much incident. That was the first flight I had taken by myself.

I took the Narita express train (expensive, but direct) to Tokyo Station (東京駅), and after eventually finding the exit (train stations in Tokyo seem to me more like subterranean rabbit warrens than anything else) I emerged into the cold, windy air of Chiyoda. I still had most of the day to wait until I could check into my hotel (an up-market capsule I found in Asakasa), hungry and tired I went searching for food. The buildings surrounding Tokyo Station (東京駅), and the Imperial Palace area strange mix of the modern and the not-so modern. I’ve found little European-style stone architecture in Japan, but here in Tokyo their seemed to be a fair share of buildings (mostly governmental department headquarters, or banks, or older companies) that used a red brick. Next to them of course are the towing office buildings with their surprisingly good selection of restaurants and Izakaya on the bottom levels. The sheer size of the buildings still gets to me, nothing in Japan makes me feel more alien than looking up at those gigantic buildings. It feels strange to me that Britain has shown such little desire to build upwards, or to even build much at all. We seem to prefer horizontal space.

 

Later, after probably one of the worst foods I have had in Japan (Nikudon, with cheese チーズ肉丼), and after a much better bowl of udon (うどん), I found my hotel. The First Cabin in Asakasa was the third capsule hotel I have stayed in whilst living in Japan. It’s less a capsule, than a bed in a dorm however. You separate yourself for the world by a curtain you pull down. The ‘room’ contains a bed, air conditioner, two (!) electrical sockets and a television (which thankfully didn’t run 24-hour pornography, unlike my first capsule experience in Osaka). I found it very comfortable. It reminded me of when I moved into my own bedroom at my parent’s house, which was the smallest room, barely room for a bed plus me.

 

That night I decided to visit Shinjuku, the area of Tokyo I stayed in when I first arrived in Japan. It’s bright, busy and loud. I spent a good time wandering, Shinjuku is home to a few interesting sights. My favourite is the large Godzilla statue looming over the Shinkjuku Toho building. A favourite stop here is Don Quixote, a store that sells everything and nothing at the same time. This is the place where I imagine a large number of the ‘weird Japan’ stories emanate from. On five or more floors, you can find t-shirts, food, cosmetics, sex toys, mobile phone cases, costumes and an endless assortment of the strangest things. It’s all tat, but unique tat, tat that doesn’t seem to want to impress anybody. Cool tat.

Shinkjuku is home to a large number of bars and Izakaya, being close to Christmas most seemed to be stuffed to the brim. However, I found a Mexican place, with live music playing. For my final meal of the day I had nachos, and a tin of Sapporo that cost far more than it should have.

Steam billows upwards from Beppu’s (別府) many onsen. As you ride the bus from Beppu Station (別府駅) up through the city and towards its onsen district you’ll notice the many puffs of hot steam rising from under the ground. Walking around the Kannawa district of Beppu (where most of the onsen and ‘hells’ of Beppu are located) you’ll notice the wisps of heat escaping from the gaps in the street. Despite it’s reputation for calm, underneath the ground Beppu churns with activity.

Long famed for its onsen, Beppu draws hordes of crowds who all come to try the hot baths and natural springs. Sandwiched between a set of dramatic mountains in the west, and the flat inland sea in the east, Beppu is a nestled hideaway from the toils of life.

Recently I took a short break from Kokura, my home city, and traveled an hour south to Beppu for the weekend. I went with the aim of trying some of the authentic onsen, in the end I visited two baths, Hyokan in Kannawa and Ebiyasu in the mountains. Whilst both provided a relaxing atmosphere, for me there was a clear winner. Whilst Ebiyasu boasted an amazing view down over the city, complete with autumn leaves and curiously milky white waters, as well as a reasonably good restaurant near by that sold one of the best Japanese curries i’ve had in Japanso far. The atmosphere was a little too quiet and too remote for my liking. For me Hyokan provided what I was looking for, a large selection of interesting baths, including a ‘waterfall’ bath, steam rooms and Beppu’s famous ‘sand baths’, in which you are buried up to your next in hot sand. Hyokan is very popular with visitors, and I can see why. It offers little in terms of views (largely just a large wall) but can provide conversation, interest, and a good traditional meal afterwards. I highly recommend that you bring your own towel set, most places charge for rental and you can save a few precious yen by bringing your own, as well as bringing your own soaps and shampoo.

Beppu is famous too for it’s ‘hells’, pools of natural hot water, the same you’d bathe in at an onsen, except superheated and often boiling. There are seven in total to visit, a 2000yen ticket will let you in to see all seven, although you could just as well select only a few. Each varies slightly, some are more muddy, others terrifyingly hot and active (a true hell) and one in particular is used to breed crocodiles (even more hellish). Each is worth seeing, and be sure to try some steam cooked foods, such as custard pudding and steam cooked sweet potato.

Beppu makes an excellent break from city life, closer to the station there are more bars and restaurants for those craving nightlife, and just outside the city there are more wildlife attractions that I’d consider visiting on my next trip. But if you come, come for the onsen. It’s simple one of Japan’s greatest features, and a trip here would be wasted without a visit to one.

Ken

Shorter version of upcoming Miyajima/Hiroshima video.