U.K. Drought

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At times when walking through Nagasaki i feel like I look like I'm wearing a mask like the one shown here. People here are prone to staring at you for no apparent (in my eyes ) reason but then again beauty isn't given to many so I do understand their fascination with mine.

Well it has finally hit the Japanese papers as well...the severe drought in the United Kingdom. The Japan Times devoted half a page to the subject explaining about the fines if one is caught using water unnecessarily (who defines that ??) and the fact that the basins haven't been renewed for ages and thus are leaking great amounts of water every day. In Chris' parallel blog he had already mentioned it but just never thought about it.

Today we had two lectures in the Rangaku 蘭学(Dutch Studies = Western Studies) series in the City Historical Museum 長崎市歴史博物館 . Not that the lecture room was more beautiful or the lecture more interesting but at least there was time to visit the museum shop. They showed us old (18th century), stained and about to dissolve Dutch documents from quite a distance so our breath wouldn't make it fall apart all together.
We now have to write down in Dutch the almost unintelligable writings by an 18th century Dutch guy in Deshima.

Tomorrow I'm off to Bangkok for the weekend to see Paul. We're going to meet up with Marco tomorrow night ( he will also come to Nagasaki in July ), with David and Scott on Saturday and Steve on Sunday.
King Bhumibol Adulyadej acceded to the Throne as Rama the IX of Thailand on the 9th of June 1946, when he was only 18 years of age and these 60 years on the throne will be celebrated in style this weekend. I hope they don't cancel my flight or Paul's for the minor VIPs coming in.
The royal barges event will take place on monday..... so unfortunately we'll have to give it a miss.

I became a member of a Japanese internet group that puts people in touch with similar interests and ususally in the same place. it's called Asoboo meaning let's visit and let's play. And guess what I was contacted by a chap in Aichi prefecture, called Minoru who loves Opera. So now I will go to Tokyo next thursday to see Andrea Chenier by Umberto Giordano performed by the Teatro Comunale di Bologna in the Tokyo Centre for Performing Arts in Ueno Park. Faberoony......

Live is good....

p.s.
There is news that my friend Pim might not come to Nagasaki after all since the guy who is taking over his dentistry practice for half a year has fallen ill all of a sudden.
Hope he can find another replacement though......