Kimono

One of the lecture series we follow here at the University is dedicated to Japanese traditional culture. We already had instructions on how to perform a classical 'Sakura Sakura' dance while holding a fan and doing all kinds of things with it except for fanning ourselves and last friday we had a class about the old Kimono 着物 with a very nice Lady. The womans one is rather difficult to put on with various strings and sashes and bows but the men's summer kimono a.k.a. Yukata is decidedly easier. Just the kimono and a sash called Obi 帯 . There are two obis one is called a kaku-obi (a plain blue, grey or whatever demure colour band made out of cotton) and the heko-obi ( a more elaborate one made out of silk or polyester with a worked ending on both sides called shibori 絞り .The artist first creates a design and then the cloth is stitched, bound, resisted, wrapped or gathered by hand. Any number of these methods are used on one piece and often involves a dozen different techniques. The cloth is then dyed in natural dyes such as indigo, bark, roots, leaves, insects or resins. For each color, dozens of steps have to be altered, re-stitched, gathered etc. and the complicated processes repeated from start to finish).
There are some quite exquisite ones to be found with a price to match ofcourse.
As you can see we're all (except for Ruud) looking in another camera....distracted by the Paparazzi once again!
Three more nights before I'm off to Bangkok to see Paul for his 45th (already) birthday........

High Speed Internet...

Today is the big day...my first entry straight from my own room. A high speed internet connection has been installed after about a month and a half after applying for it. Very happy indeed...:-)
So keep those emails coming cause I have all the time now to answer them as well.
Saterday we had a organized tour to Mount Unzen, a place with hot springs, onsen 温泉 high up in the mountains. Sort of a spa...and very relaxing to soak in one of those sulfur rich tubs. In earlier days (1630's about) this place was used to boil the catholics alive..those that didn't relinguish their faith by performing apostasy (i.e. putting your feet on the image of Jesus or Mary and renouncing your faith). A win-win situation for both the Shogun to get rid of a sort of 5th colony (cause the catholics would only obey the church not the Shogun) and for the faithful ( because the afterlife was a lot more pleasant than the harsh peasant life they were used to, according to the portuguese priests). Or is this too optimistic a view?
Any how we had a fab day with lotsa sunshine.
Nita Pass was a stop on the way where we had 20 minutes to look around (not a minute more) so we were unable to go up to the top by cable car to enjoy the fabulous views.
On we went to Shimabara castle, a rather beautiful white castle overlooking the sea and countryside from where the Shimabara uprising 島原の乱 took place in 1637. A peasant revolt mostly brought on by the burden of high taxes but also because the peasants were prosecuted for their christian belief (so it is said).

Here some rather stylishly shaped trees in someone's front yard....really beautiful.

Arrived back in Nagasaki at around 6 p.m. so we all had dinner in Tengu....our favourite Butakimchi place.
We have a Kanji (Character) test tomorrow so must dash.........

Birthday II

First of all a thank you for everybody for your calls and emails...it was really nice to receive them..felt sort of at home again all of a sudden.
Well it's time to meet the other Birthdayboyz...Mads (15th november) and Colin (21nd november). Since we all had our birthdays this month Aki organized this evening for all three of us. The place is called Capricciosa, an Italian nomihodai (drink as much as you like place with Italian food) on the 5th floor of building next to Nagasaki Station. We had the party room with stunning views over the neon lit bay.
We were with about 15 people in all, the Dutch, the Germans, the Japanese and our three friends from Taiwan台湾. Fun was to be had by all....after a couple of beers and other cocktails and the food was good too! We all got a lot of prezzies and on top of that Alexandra had organized the birthdaycards and the presents for me. A sake, 日本酒 nihonshu, made out of potatoes 芋, imo ( a Nagasaki speciality) a beautiful plant(no idea what it is called), a Japanese grammar dictionary (God only knows...I really do need it!), a Pointsettia (for the season) and even a cilantro plant (for all the Thai cooking we do here), which must have been very hard to come by. A big thank you to Alex.....
From our tutors we got beautifully made chopsticks, a sake cup and a little puppy with a significant meaning which right now escapes me for the moment.....
Since Mads and Colin got a hentai (manga porn for perverts) for their birthday it was decided to get a gay one for me too. So the boys gave me a vanilla version of 'boy love'. The genre is called 'Yaoi" and is mostly read by young women and girls ??? It will definitely improve my Japanese language skills in certain areas !
By the way the bands the birthday boys are wearing have the saying: 私は主役です！watashi wa shuyaku desu! : I'm the star !!
We topped the evening of with this most popular of Japanese passtimes....getting your picture taken with the whole group in a tiny booth...it's hot, it's quite a lot of rolling about in front of a moving camera and a awful lot of fun.
No hangover thanks to sticking to just one kind of drink only. I'm apparently wisening up as I get older.

Forgot Walter's Birthday on the 21st (ever so sorry) but not Rianne's on the same day. So not as demented as I thought....there's hope for you out there!

Birthday I

Well finally the 22nd of november had arrived. Waking up in good spirits this time...knowing that Alexandra and Christoph would be making breakfast for after our one lecture that day...a german hearty breakfast i.e. healthy and yet tasty with fresh orange juice, good bread, and lotsa fresh fruit too. It was sort of a brunch,but just a little too early for Mimosas ........ 残念ね zannen ne! You can figure out what that Japanese word means.
Opened a package from Holland (which I was not to open till today) with a big red nose, balloons and guirlandes in it...(thanks to the Family Bakker in Alkmaar)
Paul's present was a fab book on the architect of the new MoMa in New York, Yoshio Taniguchi, all the way from the big apple. Paul and I had seen a museum building by him in Tokyo and were then duly impressed.
Bought myself a little something too... called a Hounoumaku 奉納幕, an offering curtain which you normally find in front of shrines and other religious or also commercial places. Bespoke with my own characters, karyuudo 狩人 on it and some symbols befitting a hunter.
A sunny day all in all wit not much to do till 5 o'clock when we had to meet Aki to go in to town to celebrate.......

Unwell

After this great weekend it was awful having to experience monday again. We have this teacher (no idea what his name is...never introduced him self or it escaped my attention) who is the rudest person I have ever come across. Throws things at you..is never ever polite, laughs at his own jokes (I think that's what they are) and even locks the classroom door when you're half a minute late (how childish can you get!). Today another prime example...I enter the room (always the 1st and on time) say goodmorning and he just makes fun of me (saying that good morning is totally wrong after 12.00 o'clock) in a malicious kind of way. It is 12.50 though...
Had to leave after 10 minutes...got very very sick all of a sudden.
I haven't felt like this as long as I can remember.
What to do? May be go back to the other two classes that I dropped and leave this one out.
God only knows.
Will sit in the sun and have a think.

Tokyo III

My last day in Tokyo was spent shopping (Isetan, Mitsukoshi and Marui City are the large department stores in Japan) and had to meet Donald Fountaine for lunch. He has been living in and out of japan for more than 20 years about and loves it here. He does all kinds of odd jobs but also studies classical dance as performed by Geisha's. Has an extremely good teacher and even performs at times in theaters here. He is tall so when dressed up as a Geisha he invites a lot of attention to say the least. Very nice guy who I will definitely meet again.
New shoes were a must..old ones nearly gave so had to buy them. new hip ones ofcourse.
On the right still a picture from the Edo museum...
Last museum for today is the Tokyo Museum for Modern Art, where they have an exhibition on Japanese Art Nouveau from 1900 till 1923 ...very, very interesting . Stayed there rather long time but enjoyed it. Early night... (on a saturday night !!) cause my flight was at 08.35 the next day.
One of the benefits of having a Gold Star Alliance card is that at times you get bumped up to business class for free and so it happened this morning.
Sat next to an apparently famous person (the whole crew came by for an autograph) who was very nice but on her way to a funeral.
Back home after a great weekend to a lot warmer climate here in Nagasaki than in Tokyo.
Dinner with Alexndra and Christoph (her boyfriend who finally arrived and is going to stay for a month !)

Tokyo II

After breakfast on friday morning (scrambled eggs, bacon etc.) I met Shigemi, a Japanese friend of mine, whom I met in Kobe last July. He showed me a beautiful chrysantemum exhibition in a park close to the imperial palace (big news here: a couple of days ago a princess called Nori-nomiya-sama married a commoner so now she is no longer part of the imperial household and has to get used to a regular life, i.e. being instructed how a supermarket works etc.). Continued to see the infamous Yasakuni shrine 靖國神社where the Japanese war heroes (and criminals) are being honoured. Every year when the Japanese prime minister i.e. Koizumi visits this shrine in August there is a lot of outrage from the Chinese and Koreans. The shrine is beautiful but they do have a museum where history isn't quite told as it should be told...with 'glamorous' kamikaze planes and loads of pictures from the war heroes.
Bought some fab prints from the beginning of the Meiji 明治 period (around 1886)　by an artist called Tankei in an area called Jinbochou 神保町, full of second hand bookstores. I don't think that they are originals (seeing what I paid for them) but they will look great.
On to the Fukagawa Edo Museum 深川江戸資科館, where they show Edo, as Tokyo used to be called, with a lay-out of an old quarter with streets and houses that you can see from the inside. Really spectacular.
Had to meet Damion (american friend) in Omotesando, another very upscale area of Tokyo, full of Gucci, Louis Vuiton and other stores where we had ... caipirinhas (the real stuff with agua ardente) in a loungy place called Montook with groovy people and music. Mexican food...yeah..for dinner. Loved it. Last drink at GB's again....

Tokyo I

After a nice flight through blue skies I arrived at Haneda airport 羽田空港 (the mainly domestic airport of Tokyo) around 6 p.m. and continued to go to my hotel (Listel) in Shinjuku, one of the busiest sections of Tokyo. Nice spacious room (unlike japanese hotels) with a couch and nicely decorated.
Had to meet Bram, a fellow student from Leiden University who is studying at Waseda for a year at around 7 p.m.. Bram took me to a place in Shinjuku san chome 新宿三丁目, (Shinjuku's 3rd quarter) where we had beer and the great Japanese vegetable (or whatever you like) omelette called okonomiyaki お好みやき , covered in brown sauce and mayonaise and topped off with bonito flakes (fish that is!). Bram loves it there and apart from taking language classes he is also attends some political lectures...the only snag is that it's a lot more expensive in Tokyo then in Nagasaki..but hey, you get a lot more.
Went through Kabukichou, a sort of maffioso neighbourhood north of Shinjuku, where Yakuza rules and the gambling parlours and "love hotels" abound. You can book them by the hour (called 'rest') or for the night (called 'stay'). They're sort of tacky looking ... expensive but totally wrong. Chandeliers and guilded furnishings so to speak. We even entered one to have a good look around. Went looking for a Korean Isakeya (watering hole) with beer and kimchi (hot korean cabbage) but couldn't find one..so ended up in GB's.

Tokyo here I come.....

After a busride from Nagasaki station now idling away the remaining time at the airport till boarding time. There is no lounge (too small an airport) but plenty of souvenirshops where you can buy cake and other sweet things or even fishy food and lots of S.O.S. (same old sh#%!) as we call it, and take it back to your loved ones to show that you actually have been to (in this case) Nagasaki. It's all extremely expensive as well. The name is omiyage お土産 and it's big business.
I'm flying to Haneda, the domestic airport of Tokyo and closer to the centre. Should take about an hour to Shinjuku. It's going to be a busy weekend with lots of appointments with friends. Unfortunately there was only one flight back on sunday at 08.25...so will have to get up really early. i.a.w. no real party on saturdaynight.

Japanese Culture and C&A.

As mentioned before last friday we had our first lecture on Japanese culture and it was delightful.... A mother and daughter in traditional kimonos tried to instruct us...foreign savages, to dance the 'Sakura Sakura' dance..a dance performed when the Japanese go out to watch the cherry blossoms in the spring..with fan. But alas 10 people in a tiny japanese room with tatami mats..it some how didn't quite work out. They tried, the poor dears.

By the way in Holland we have this big Dutch store called C&A where you can buy reasonably priced clothes (definitely not for the ueberhip) that will last a couple of years or so .... So it doesn't come as a great surprise that Ruud, Mads and Bart had bought their first suits ever here...same brand name but slightly different, to take to Japan..just in case you would need a suit for something really important....
Mads went for a more hip colour and the others for a more demure (is that the word?) colour i.e. greyish black.

Fire drill and Dancing

Last saturday we had a morning filled with fire drill activities starting at 10.00 am. There was a mock fire on the 2nd floor and everybody had to be evacuated. I think it was more a drill for the fire department itself then for us..since all we did was look on . Afterwards though we received instructions on how to put out a fire with an extinguisher as well as a fire in a pan in the kitchen using a wet cloth and making sure that it was neatly tied in a bow in the front..very japanese ....presentation (even in emergencies) is everything ! Also had to learn how to give first aid and revive the moribund (like I haven't tried that before) with mouth to mouth resuscitation, giving electro shocks and shouting.............don't give up on me now, damn it.!
I think I'm on my way to become a big star in Japan real soon.
Saturdaynight is party night...so Alexandra and I dolled ourselves up to the max and off we went to a club called "Jah rules". I think Jah is the name of the owner, a black guy, who has this cute place where the beer is 500 yen (no cover charge) and where some expats and local Japanese who want to meet foreigners, go. Met nice people and danced for the first time till late.....well late...we were home just after 02.00 am..
Alexandra's boyfriend, Christoph will come next saturday and stay for a month so she is thrilled to bits, as one can imagine.......
Only three days of lectures this week as we have thursday thru sunday off. I'm off to Tokyo to see Bram, another dutch student from Leiden who is studying at Waseda University, Shigemi, a Japanese friend I met in Kobe last July and a friend of Teru in Osaka, and also Damion, an american guy living in Tokyo. Should be fun and I will keep you posted.
A new sidetable to store books and put pretty things on was delivered on Sunday..and it does give the room a more elegant feel..more befitting the environment I'm like soooo accustomed too.

Leiden Nobel Prize......????

Just received info from Rianne that Aike, Rianne herself and IJsbrand (all Japanese studies students at Leiden University) received a sort of 'Nobel Prize' for whatever they had to do (thesis..??) from the University. One day I hope to find out what is is since I really would like to receive one myself (for all the benefits I have bestowed upon mankind for instance).

Did get my bike...a fab new one without gears but stylishly silver grey with black accents and a cute shopping basket at the front for essential shopping for only 7.000 yen (ca. 52 euro). Bought it at Mister Max, a sort of huge Wall-Mart, on top of a hill. Went there with Aki by taxi and raced down afterwards. You also have to pay an obligatory registration (500 yen) but then the police will give back your bike if (ever) it is stolen.

Her is a picture taken during the celebration after finishing the NY marathon with a proud Stefan and Paul in it. They definitely deserved to hang loose after such a stupendous event.
For the 1st time now we have a lecture on Japanese culture...so no idea if it is about Kimono, Ikebana, Origami or old Shamisen music or just Manga (Japanese comicstrips) Will keep you informed.

Bicycle...

After weeks of walking to and from the University campus from our home, I will finally go out today and get myself a bike, 自転車 jitensha, with the help of my ever helpful tutor Aki. Apparently they are very cheap (new between 5 and 7.000 yen and used between 3 and 5.000 yen). And they are kinda cute. hey only come in two clours...grey and black.
Forgot to tell you about a wonderfull Japanese institution called 'nomihodai' 飲み放題..it's all you can drink..yes drink..for a certain amount of money within a certain amount of time.
This is of course geared towards the japanese (they're missing an enzyme so they can't take in a whole lot of alcohol..as the story goes) but for us westerners it's just great. In this case Aki, my tutor once again, took us to one last wednesday (3rd november) where you pay 1.050 yen (8 euro about) and you can drink all the beer, whiskey, G & T's that you can within 3 hours...You have to eat something there too..from sushi to fried pork and fish..everything is available. Well you can imagine the result..10 totally drunken dutch people and 5 not so sober Japanese people too. We had a blast.

Beforehand we went to a karaoke place (one big room with two screens and room for 20 or more people) where we sang anything from Curtis Mayfield to Japanese "Rammstein" songs.
Must dash since I'm meeting Aki for bicycle purchase.....

NYC Marathon

After months of strenous training schedules in Amsterdam or abroad, Paul finally did run the New York Marathon last sunday the 6th November and he did well !!!

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ING New York City Marathon Athlete Alert for Paul Janssen (race number 24367)Paul Janssen has finished the ING New York City Marathon in 3:45:39. Congratulations!
Please visithttp://www.ingnycmarathon.org/ for complete results, photos, wrap-up stories, and motivation for 2005.
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Needless to say that I am extremely proud of my man doing this...first of all making it to the end and secondly in putting down such a good time as well...(apparently one second after his running mate Stefan) Unfortunately there are no picture as yet.
Finally he has time to do what every one needs to do when visiting the big apple...retail therapy...Barney's, Saks 5th Avenue, Macy's etc..the lot. Spend it Paul...you damn well earned it!
Played bridge for the first time here in Nagasaki with members of the Nagasaki Bridge League. A total of about 16 people (sic) are permament members and some hangers-n. I was picked up by Mizoguchi san ( a retired Mitsubishi salary man) who organizes the whole thing every week. But beware instead of the usual 24 games we play in Amsterdam we had to play 36 games...almost the whole day. They play american standard..similar to Acol but then again not...so you can imagine how worn out I was. Decided not to do this every week but once a month. Missed the 'Happy Hour' afterwards..ah well, next year again.

Cultural Day

Since November 3rd is is cultural day here in Japan and a day off, what better way to spend it than to go to a shrine and a museum.
The Shinto shrine Alexandra and I went to is up on a slope, 坂 saka, (one of many here in Nagasaki) and is again one of those examples of beauty, tucked away in a garden in between ugly houses. Lots of children dressed up in traditional garb were parading around and the parents all the while taking pictures.
In a little noodleshop next door we had some ramen with tempura on it (a whole prawn indeed!). Delicious....
Had a stroll through the park with a very clear pond full of large carp, Koi as they are called in various colours..even golden ones.

There was also a flower and plant exhibition and it shows how the Japanese love to create shapes with plants rather than letting them develop themselves. The chrysantemum bushes on the right are a prime example.
Then we went to the Nagasaki Historical and Cultural Museum, 長崎歴史文化博物館 and witnessed the opening by the mayor of Nagasaki. It's a beautiful building made like the old office of the representatve of the Shogun here in Nagasaki. It shows the trade between China and Holland with Japan as well as the development of Nagasaki from a small town into a well...slightly larger town.
A play was performed by some actors depicting the settling of a dispute between two daimyo 大名(landlords) before the representative of the Shogun 将軍. They looked quite fierce.
Pictures just had to be taken.
One of the solutions japan has to come up with the limited space they have in the cities is that besides the tiny cars you see everywhere, the gas stations will supply the gas out of the ceiling rather than having it come out of the ground...more space is thus created.

Example of Gagaku Music....