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Published: August 26th 2010
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I don't know exactly how big Nagasaki is, but it has to be quite big for taking us two hours from NGS airport to the place we were going.
Our hotel was the Victoria Inn, just a few steps away from China Town.
After our two minutes taxi ride from the bus stop to our hotel we finally were at our final destination. There, we were to meet another MCI engineer who had checked in at the hotel sometime before us, the same day. We already had a reservation, so it was just a matter of checking in. The people at the counter were very helpful and courteous, and they spoke English well enough, they offered us to carry our luggage but we refused, we just wanted to get the day over with. We thank them and went up the elevator to our assigned rooms. When I enter to my room, I threw myself in the bed and close my burning eyes for a while, it was already almost midnight and I had been awake for about 40 hours. It was not time to sleep yet because, I had to take a good shower and prepare my stuff to be ready
to start my first work day the next morning. I went to sleep about 2 a.m. I woke up after five hours, did my morning duties and went to the lobby to meet my colleagues. The Victoria Inn is difficult to find because it is at an alley that separates from the main road, only a medium sing points you the way. The hotel has two accesses, the main entrance leads to an alley, into the left is the main road and the local train tracks and to the right there is a motorcycle parking along the alley with one hidden pachinko trade office with some very small windows. The right of the alley leads to a small street, which is much transited during the evenings and weekends, I figure because there are clubs and restaurants around and besides, some women offer massages as you walk by. The back access to the hotel, exits to a street where local merchants set their products to sell on the sides of the street.
The three of us walked to the main road to take a taxi. I keep telling to myself how were we going to cross the language barrier with the
driver and tell him our destination, but I was relieved when one of the engineers let him know. He does not speak Japanese but he knew how to say where we were going, the Mitsubishi shipyard is not something that locals can miss.
I was very sleepy on our way to the shipyard but, I was with my eyes wide open looking everywhere, trying not to miss any details. Everything was different to what I was accustomed, the cars having the steering wheel on the right side and driving the opposite side of the road than the US. A 99 percent of the cars are very small; hence the streets are not that wide. Most of the buildings are so close together, it is similar to a US shopping center, although it is not defined. There are a lot of people driving scooters and bicycles, the scooter drivers do not follow the order of the cars, in traffic they make their way between the cars. I found something interesting in what they do, the Japanese are very polite people in the way of treating others but they do not yield to other drivers easily. Police cars are not usually seen,
as it is in the US, and the month I spent in Nagasaki I did not see a single accident.
Although I saw some teenage students walking by, I did not see children, it seems like children are very scarce in the city.
While in the city most of things are small, the shipyard has huge structures, they have a huge cranes next to dry-docks, where ships are taken out of the water to be overhauled. I was very overwhelmed with my new experiences; it was my first time in a giant ship. We walked up a tall ramp to enter the ship and went up 3 decks to the MCI quarters. We put on or working cloth, agreed in what we where going to start and went to work.
Beginning of my exploration
My first day in the job was exiting. After work we went back to the hotel, took a shower and went out for dinner. The main engineer showed us Chinatown and some restaurants that are located there but we ended up eating at an Italian restaurant. Our hotel was very close to China town, we just had to exit by the back access and walk just
a few yards. There is a food store on the side of the street and in front of it a stand where they make and sell burgers with fries and one can eat them in some outdoor tables they have on the side of the street, by the way they are big and have a very good taste. One of the China town entrances can be viewed for the burger stand. Just before getting to the entrance there is a nice bridge, which is full of people taking pictures having the Chinatown entrance as their background, especially on the weekends. The entrance is attractive, there is one pole in each side of the street with Chinese letters, supporting and overhead that looks like Chinese traditional roofs announcing, I guess, the name of the place. There are a lot of overheads that are ornaments for the place, at night they are lid with red and blue light. Chinatown is a type of shopping center, with small shops and a lot of restaurants, one in particular got my attention, it had to beautifully red columns decorated with golden dragons wrapped around them, the glass windows also had golden dragons on them. Its
main attraction though, was one more golden dragon inside a big circle; it appeared to me as a giant medallion. I never knew the name of this restaurant because there was not roman letters anywhere but I deducted it was called "the golden dragon" what else could it be? One of my fellow engineers is not very adventurous, even though some fake plates on the menu were being displayed inside a glass box for people to see, we did not eat there.
I walked many times after that on Chinatown by myself, taking pictures and admiring all the ornaments they have there. During the second week they put some lights enclosed in a yellow balloon, making them look like lanterns, hanging from one side of the street to the other as if some kind of festival was going on. Even thought this place is not very big it was one of my favorites, I visited it almost everyday.
Walking
Most of my exploration was done at night due to my long working day, I always got back at the hotel around seven pm, thus, I went out about 8:30.
My first week there I did not adventure far from my
hotel because it was a bit difficult to get my bearings and it took me a while to learn the main streets. I acquired some fliers from the hotel, which contained information about the main touristic attractions of town, and I promised myself I would visit all of them.
I started with the locations closer to my hotel. The first place I visited was an old Buddhist temple close to my hotel, to get there I went through the Hama Machi and some small but beautiful streets. I wonder around for a while admiring everything, so it was no wonder that the temple was closed when I got there. I was a little bit disappointed but at least I had found the place by using the map.
I will talk about other Nagasaki places in my next blog. Now I am going to sleep.
Have a great time whatever you are.
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