Downs only Bring Ups

Well, after Friday's little mental breakdown (which is exactly what it turned out to be: overreacting solely because of culture shock - I feel much better now), I took Saturday to go out and explore the city. Partly because I needed something to do on a Saturday. Partly because I didn't want to stay in my room all day, and partly because, frankly, I wanted to go.

That being said, most of my time was spent at the three shopping districts. Picture Nagasaki like the letter J, but with a line crossing the bottom hook. It also is easy to picture a fishing hook with a worm on it (for those of you that like fishing). The the area that consists of the worm-hook apparatus is the lively part of town. The three big districts are (by area name): Amu Plaza (Nagasaki Eki-Mae - literally "in front of Nagasaki Station," even though it is the station...), You-Me Saito (doesn't have a translation... weird. It's about 5 blocks South...ish of Amu), and Hamanomachi (literally "Seashore Town", because when the land wasn't filled in a mile east of it, it used to be by the shore...). Much of it turned out to be window-shopping, but I did end up getting a few items: a notebook of blank music score, so I can write down whatever pops into my mind (currently, an arrangement of The Carpenter's "This Masquerade") and a 2-ring binder (three rings don't exist here - I'm in the land of A4 and B5 paper, not 8.5"x11" here) to put my choir music in.

Yeah, I know... Music geek to the end, huh? It was the only thing that really caught my eye at the time, and I didn't have anyone there to say, "Don't by that shirt, it'll look horrible on you!", so I played it safe. Started transcribing "This Masquerade" at around 9:15 that night, after dinner had passed.

Sunday. Morning was pretty much blah. Nothing really to do - I put out my laundry to dry, and read the rest of the last Murakami book I have to read for Lit class (they're good books, mind you, but I tire of the same author 3 books in a row). Then, in a fit of nothing to do (again), I headed out back to Amu Plaza. Ate at McDonald's along the way - and there's a story in and of itself. Getting the food was easy enough - they taught us how to order things during class, and it's something you pick up as you live here. When you think of the Golden Arches (*takes time to look around to see that there are now lawyers around calling copyright infringment*), you imagine a typical US fast food restaurant. Not here. First of all, the staff is (dare I say it) friendly - they have smiles on and everything. Dare you to find that at your next Mickey D's visit. Next, I looked at the menu, and, being one of always-daring culinary sense, I chose the Teryaki MacBurger (pronounced in Japanese as "Teryaki ma-ku-ba-a-ga-a"). My god, if anyone who works at McDonalds HQ in the US... GET THEM TO PUT THIS ON THE MENU BACK HOME! The sandwich, while a bit small in comparison to US standards, is the most delicious thing ever rolled up into wax paper and served to a customer. Finally, (and this applies in all of Nagasaki, and actually all of Japan) you sort out your garbage in the available 3 bins - combustibles, non-combustibles, and plastic bottles. Hooray for countries that care for the environment.

Anyway, where was I... Oh right - headed to Eki-Mae. I managed to wander into the area just as they were setting up a free concert, so I thought, "eh.. What the hell. Choir practice isn't until 6 anyway." (it was currently around 2:30, and the concert was to take place at 3:00) Needless to say, as concerts go, this one lacked everything except for an audience. I swear, 13 - 25 year olds from the entire city were packed into this area about the size of the Kehl Center (for the Clarke people) or Wharton Field House (for the home people). The concert attendance, I would guess, hit around 4,000. I'll give you a moment to figure out how crammed we were in there.


Yeah... pretty uncomfortabe, except that my Gaijin Bubble power apparently still worked. I had this nice 1-foot radius around me, and, with the added height advantage, I was pretty well off. The concert itself, however, didn't go too well. Besides starting 45 minutes late, it only lasted a total of a half-hour. So much for killing time. I had heard the group on the radio before ("Funky Monkey Babys", by name) and so I enjoyed what I heard, but was left feeling a bit lacking. What can you expect from a free concert though?

So, afterwards, dinner. Or should I say a snack that turned into dinner? In Japan, there is a chain restaurant that exists, which is made only to sell doughnuts. That's right: doughnuts. It's called (cue creativity slap) Mr. Doughnut. It was tasty, but Japanese doughnuts taste chewier than US doughnuts. I can't quite say which I like better, but I'll have to defer that to a later time (and more doughnuts...).

Then, I went to choir practice. This practice was a bit different from the one on Friday, in that everything that went wrong then, went exactly right today. Instead of being just the Cho-dai students, we were sitting in on a practice of the Nagasaki City Choir (the concert is kind of a big deal, i guess). The director (same one as Friday's), as we were singing, made a point that everyone should make sure to get their consonants out clearly (a personal win on that one...). She also, at another point in the rehearsal, pointed out the fact that my vowel shapes while singing were correct. As the first singing compliment I had heard since joining the choir, that felt really good. The practice was LONG though: Three hours later, we adjourn, all of us tired, a bit sweaty (the room was warm), and ready for the night to be done.

Takahiro (one of my closer friends, and my DDR partner) asked me afterwards if I wanted to go and play a round, which I gladly agreed to. We played at an arcade different from the one we normally go to, and the machine here was in excellent condition. My timing registered better than normal, the music was much louder (which only helped my playing that much), and it was overall a much better experience playing there. A couple of downfalls though: the machine is a little more expensive - 100 yen (around $.83 - I figured it out in my head this morning while I battled boredom) gets you three songs instead of four; and the arcade in that area is not smoke-free, which makes it a little stinky and difficult to play for long sessions.

I then came home and took a nice, long, lukewarm bath. I didn't want to take a hot bath, so it felt great. And then I went about writing on this. And so here we are. I'm glad Friday turned out like it did though - it made today feel that much more awesome. Ja, ne? (translation: "later.")