Big Adventures, Little World

The day began with us walking out of our room to find a couple of people sleeping on the floor of June’s lounge room which gave us the feeling that we were just staying at a friend’s house after a big night. It was about 8.30am as we were ready to leave, but realised we needed to wake June to give him back the keycard and get our security deposit from him. I went to his room and woke him up, gave him the keycard, and then he gave us the deposit back without even checking the room. Why he took it? I have no idea. We headed out and for some reason we felt the need to thank him very much for letting stay, like it was an unexpected thing at a friend’s house. Nonetheless the, it was a really great place to stay and he was very welcoming and a great guy. A highly recommended place to stay, even if it is a little unorthodox!

Firstly, we checked out the Cultural Sightseeing Street, which turned out to be not all that exciting. So we went off to find some markets to do a bit of shopping. This turned out more difficult than expected, and proved much harder to find anything we actually wanted. We ended up getting frustrated and finding somewhere to eat. All the menus were in Korean, luckily though as we sat there staring at the fake plates trying to figure it out, a young Korean man came up to us and asked in English if we knew what we were ordering. He explained to us what some things were, recommended us some Korean dishes, and even took us and ordered the food for us. It made our day, he was so very helpful for no reason.

After a bit of food we went in search of some more markets, but again we were disappointed with them not offering much of what we wanted. We ended up finding a couple of things before heading back to the ferry terminal to catch the Beetle back to Japan and end our stay in Korea.

All in all it was quite a nice place to stay, but would have been better if we had another day or so. Still a great experience nonetheless, and would love to go again. One thing though is that the drivers on the road are crazy! We ended up taking the approach of crossing lights with “Go hard, or go home in a body bag” because if you hesitated, you were bound to get hit. Bye bye Korea, see you again one day.

A month ago or so I was sitting a home on the computer and a message pops up from Bel. “Hey, wanna go to Korea while you are here?” A little bit confused I reply “Sure, why not?” so here I am, in Korea, for a whirlwind tour of about 24 hours.

Once again up and about in the early morning for two unemployees, we were off to the bus station to take us to Fukuoka, where we would depart for Busan, Korea. The bus ride was like any other, and gave me a chance to catch a little shuteye. All this traveling on public transport was great. I could sleep all during the trips, then only need a few hours sleep each night.

We got the International Departure Port where we would be catching the Beetle Boat to Korea which took roughly 3 hours. Some of the views as we left the port were good, but once out on open water, it was time to sleep again. Before we knew it, “Land Ahoy!” Korea was in our sight and it was a magnificent looking city from the water with mountains and buildings everywhere.

We got through customs, found a bus to take us to the station, where we changed over to the subway, and got off where instructed by the hostel, and made the call for them to come pick us up. Now this is where it gets interesting. Not in a bad way at all, just a different way I guess you could say.

We were told it would be about 10 minutes to meet us at the station, which confused as a little as the hostel was supposed to be in the heart of the city, but no matter. About 8 minutes later a car pulls up, so we think, maybe this is for us, but no go, until about another 5 minutes passes and a guy comes jogging across the street to us and introduces himself as June, from the Zen Backpackers Hostel. So he’d ran to come meet us so he could escort us to the hostel, to make sure we found it, which was good, just not what were expecting.

We arrived at an apartment building which June told us was only built 10 months ago and he hands us a keycard to get it and takes us to the 29th floor (of 32). We go through the door and find a extremely nice place with extraordinary views which seems more like  bachelor pad than a hostel. June showed us around, starting with our room with 2 beds, another room with 4 beds, the bathroom, the kitchen, lounge area, the views, then shows us his room. It basically just seemed like he had bought the apartment himself, and the spare rooms he just rents out to international travelers. He wasn’t even sure how long we were staying! Nonetheless, he was a great host, showed and told us some places to go on our map, supplied us with everything we needed, offered to use his computer if the guest one was occupied, and was a great person to deal with and talk to.

Not long after putting our bags we headed back out to Haenabe Beach where we found a Korean Barbecue restaurant for dinner. We had lots of small bowls served to us with different kinds of vegetables, salads and sauces, plus some pork and sausage which we got to cook ourselves in the middle of the table. It was all quite spicy, but a pretty good meal no doubt. I did however eat a red chili, which I thought was capsicum, which then kept my mouth burning throughout most of dinner! Even the beer couldn’t cool my mouth down.

We finished our dinner and headed out to the beach, where June had to take us told us there was over 1 million people the day before. It didn’t disappoint. There was people everywhere, but not as packed as it could have been as the sun was setting, and we think the officials were telling people to get out the water. We found a Starbucks and sat down for a coffee overlooking the beach and relaxed for a while before checking out the beach once again, this time with the night lights, then ventured back to the “hostel” to turn in for the night.

An early start was in order as we decided that returning to the hostel for some R&R during the middle, and hottest, part of the day was best. We were heading to Dejima, which was once a man made island, but had since be reconnected to the rest of Japan but is in the process of being restored to its early 19th century form.

Dejima is about 15000 square metres and was originally developed as a place to keep the Dutch and curb their effects on the rest of Japan. It has many buildings that have been restored to how they used to be, along with objects and other history strewed around in buildings around the island. It now also features and Adelaide, Australia Koala Bear on one of the ropes holding up a giant flagpole. (Well at least it did when we left the place).

It was so interesting wandering around, reading all the information from how the island was created, to how it was run, what operated on the island, and tools and objects they used, that before we knew it, a few hours had passed. It took a lot longer than we had expected, but we weren’t complaining at all, it was worth every minute of it.

We decided to walk out towards the beach in search of the dragon boats festival that was going on, and eventually, and somewhat unintentionally we stumbled upon it. We had heard drumming so followed that, to what we found out was what we were looking for. A little disappointing though, as none of the boats actually looked like dragons as I expected, or even had dragons painted on the side. We sat by the water and watched as occasionally a team would row out to a random spot, wait a while, maybe row some more, then come back. We were confused. All I wanted was a race, was that too much to ask? I didn’t think so, but apparently eeryone else did, as I didn’t get my wish. So we moved on.

Back at Nagasaki Station, we slowl ventured around the shopping mall to kill some time, before getting an early dinner, then upstairs to the cinemas to see The Dark Knight. The previews and ads before the movie were in Japanese, but I’m pretty sure I got the tanslations right just from the pictures. One being “you’re not allowed to replace your head with a camera.” Thankfully the movie was in English, and all I had to do was put up with the annoying Japanese subtitles. Oh yeah, the movie was amazing, it had it all, with Belinda not being able to take her hand away from her mouth the whole movie! Not only did the movie have it all, but so did we, with Mister Donut donuts, caramel popcorn AND salted popcorn, and not to forget, some melon soda to top it off. Oh the life of the unemployed…

Our first day in Nagasaki started later than usual so we could catch up on a bit of sleep that we so desperately needed. We eventually decided to pull ourselves away from the air conditioned comfort of the hostel room and went off to wander down Temple Street.

Nagasaki has trams going all over the city, and at only 100 yen per person, it was a bargain. Everything was in fairly close vicinity of each other, or a short tram ride away. Most it was even in walking distance, so we even walked a lot of places we went. Another thing I noticed about Nagasaki was the kids. They were everywhere. Little kids with their parents walking round, catching the trams, some cute, some just annoying. I think it must be the kid capital of Japan or something.

So, back to Temple Street. It was just a 2 blocks behind our hostel so off we walked, our first stop was Kofukuji Temple, which was a Chinese Temple. The grounds where amazing, so well kept and green, and there was hardly anyone around which made it very relaxing to walk around and look at it all.

After Kofukuji, we began wandering along Temple Street and made it to Sofukuji Temple, which was also Chinese. Again, there wasn’t many people around which made for a relaxing visit as we meandered through the grounds.

By now we had seen enough temples, and because of the humidity and heat we decided to grab a quick snack from the Family Mart, and back to the hostel for air con.

Skip to 2 hours later and we were back on the tram, or streetcar if you prefer, and on our way to see the Nagaski Peace Museum, a tribute and history of the second nuclear bomb dropped on Japan during World War II. There is so much to take in while walking throughout the museum, and so much of it is so difficult to comprehend, but without it, it would be unknown to so many how much damage the bombs actually caused. With objects such as glass bottles and coins that had melted together, to metal frames of building and bridges that buckled, and walls of houses and slabs of concrete that had shadows burnt in to them due to the intense heat from the blast. As well as clocks that had stopped at the exact time the bomb was dropped, and plates and bowls that had been charred so badly, not to mention the stories of people going to thee homes to find loved ones, only to find their ashes, it is a really terrifying thought imagining what it would have been like.

From the museum, we went to the Hypocenter, the exact spot where the bomb was dropped. There is a monument standing in the place, as well as small part of a wall of the cathedral that was still standing after the bomb. Off we walked again, this time to the peace park, which has beautiful gardens and many statues and monuments dedicated to peace donanted from different countries around the world. The main sttatue we wanted to see though, was unfotunateley ruined by construction work being done around it. We weren’t really sure if they were buiding a wall by the sides of it or cleaning it, but we did know that the scaffolding that was erected had ruined our photos! So off we went, back to the station to see if we could find somewhere for dinner.

The night was young, so we jumped on the tram and ventured out to the ropeway (cable car) to take us to the top of one of Nagaski’s surrounding mountains. (It is surrounded by mountains on 3 sides of the city). While the ride up there wasn’t anything special, it only took about 6 or 7 minutes and was definitely worth it. The view from the observatory at the top was spectacular! You could see the whole city, all around, and it was all illuminated which was a stunning view. The city, building, parks and bridges, the rivers, the outlines of the mountains, it could all be seen. We photographed it all from as many angles as we could then hopped back on the ropeway for our return trip down the mountain.