A streetcar named desire

Stop the Tram
Originally uploaded by decentred.

Sorry for another week with nothing - we've been mental busy here. Em's folks have been here (as you can tell from the previous post) and we spent half the week in Nagasaki, which I reckon is the best place we've been to so far in Japan. That, and we went to Nakatsu's Gion festival, duly clad in traditional dress (see the flickr set - Chaahming).

Gion was nuts - people in Nakatsu whose normal daily life wouldn't, with the bast will in the world be described as exciting, dress up in Japanese traditional costume and let loose. Some go and watch the festivities, whilst drinking and eating whole, fried squid on sticks; others get really drunk; still others club together and pull bloody great floats around, containing drum/cymbal/bell players. The sound of the percussion (CHING-chikka-ching-chikka-ching-chikka-ching-CLANG CLANG-chikka-ching... you get the idea) has been about for about 3 months now, what with people practising, and I kinda miss it (even though on the night I was pretty sick of same).

After a quick tour of Tropis for Jack, we went home and the next morning we Sonic'ed it out to Nagasaki. It's weird, really; not quite Japanese, and not quite anywhere else either -like a cross between Fukuoka and San Fransisco, or so I imagine. It was cool to get away again for a few days after the fun at Hyuga, and it was really nice to show Em's folks another part other than Nakatsu (which despite being a nice, small city, is still a nice, small city and not exactly a cultural epicentre...)
Perhaps the highlight of the trip was the Inasa-yama ropeway; a cable car to the top of a mountain from which you can get a 360-degree view of the whole city, plus the islands to the west. It was absolutely speck-tack-you-lair, and well worth a repeat visit.

Along the way we got Jack a new, shiny digital camera, which he can safely drop from a height/thump/dunk in a beer etc, and Em's mum bought a Shuffle, so she can listen to audiobooks anywhere, anytime. I was going to buy a MIDI controller keyboard, but they'd run out. Just my luck.

Maybe we should transfer to Nagasaki...