DAY TWO: FUKUOKA > NAGASAKI

State of mind: awed
Current soundtrack: Ultraseven X - High Response (Komoguchi Yuuya)

Bleared through the day, talked to random people, scared the crap out of the tour group and saw extreme kyooteness.

Right. Starting over now.

Finished up at Changi Airport and slept fitfully all the way to Fukuoka, waking up just in time to catch a GLORIOUS mid-air sunrise. Naturally there was no way to get a half-decent picture through the window. *sigh* Breakfast was unusually FTL (salty cheese omelette, BLEUGH!) but everything else went fairly smoothly, even the dreaded evil gaijin terrorist profiling foreigner registration thing! Thumbprints, picture, out the door feeling somewhat violated. Snuck ONE picture at the airport entrance, partly for the logo and partly for the semi-bishie guy standing around.

Met up with the rest of the tour group and realized my poor carry-on bag had started to split from all the crud I’d put into it (゜Д゜；；；) Went on tour nevertheless…and found the plan had changed somewhat. We were off to Huis Ten Bosch (‘hosu ten bosu’).

Before I actually start talking, it may be worth to take note again that the whole tour was conducted in Mandarin. Alamak. I’m an English-and-Japanese-speaking-Chinese in Japan, having to listen to a Mandarin tour for seven days. WO BU JIANG HUA YI. @_@; You could say I lost quite a lot of info through this—thank god I can at least read attraction signs and things!

So, HTB. Turns out this European-themed minicity is based on the Dutch queen’s palace. The name means ‘house in the forest’…what, HRH lived in the forest ala Red Riding Hood? 8S Anyway there were many interesting things to see, including a teddy bear museum (4 m tall teddy, anyone?), leetle dwarf horses, lots and lots of flowers, swans and ducks, and the M.C. Escher exhibition hall.

This would have been of interest to Lamster, as true to the twisted nature of Escher’s pics, the floor was uneven and there were fake crooked windows, doors to nowhere, birds turning to fishes on the wall tiles...They even had a special ‘3D presentation’ based on Escher’s neverending waterfall picture and…something to do with demons and angels. Don’t look at me, but…if you name your dog FOOFY, something BAD is going to happen.

This being a DUTCH-themed area, there were plenty of opportunities to bicycle around the place. Rented an altered tandem from the hut and pedaled up and down and up the roads. It was there we reunited with the tour group. Reunited? Yep. The tour guide neglected to mention all tickets had already been bought, so we *bought our own* and drifted off. Scared the crap out of everybody. :P Hey, we found them again, didn’t we?

There were maples, so of COURSE I had to freak out like an ulu person and take lots of pictures amirite?

For lunch we ate so-called Taiwanese ramen at this place called Lao Lee. It was…ok, but oi, lao lang, is that the best you’re able to offer? D: Tried my luck later at the teddy bear lottery, and won one! Selected a black bear to combat ‘disasters’, who is sitting on my office desk right now.

Headed for the tour bus early, lugging that, some maps and an Escher-themed gacha. Slept much of the way back to the cosy New Tanda Hotel in Nagasaki (it was a sign! *rimshot*) and had a little wash before dinner. Interesting spread, including chicken curry (Japanese curry! Yum! ♥) and ‘chanpon’, which is a bit like Canto-fry yee meen—the ones with the white eggy gravy. (Wikipedia tells me ’chanpon’ is used much as ‘rojak’ is locally. Sweet.) It’s a local specialty (one of three, you will find). They then turned us loose o the Nagasaki Chinatown, within walking distance of the hotel.

Before you didn’t ask, no, I didn’t see a sign saying ‘Chi Cheong Kai’.

It was…interesting. I expected to hear more Chinese, but didn’t. Dad saw an old man spit into his hands, but we both agreed he reminded us muchly of Dad’s eldest bro. %/ Lots of curio shops selling biidoro (pipe-like glass instruments) and trinkets and things, as well as a tortoiseshell shop boasting the ‘lowest prices in Japan’ that still made me feel ill at ease. Tons of restaurants, many specializing in kakuni manjuu: thick slices of tender simmered pork belly in buns. Bring it over to Malaysia and you’d probably call it kong bak and man tou. There was also a fadorable set of Northern lion dance dollies (sound-activated) that sprang to life at a clap. The feet tap and everything as it cuts the rug—go go disco inferno lion!


Suzaku, Seiryuu, Byakko and Genbu decorate a bridge across the river. Very traditional! (The four are also known as Zhu Que, Qing Long, Bai Hu and Xuan Wu. Blame Fushigi Yuugi for my default terms.)

Bought a charming Manjusri/Monjushi talisman/deco at a shop (that’s in my purse now) and Dad bought persimmons, being nuts about them. Dressed for bed, drank some water and went to sleep.

Onsen tomorrow?