Photo Dump 3: Nagasaki, Kumamoto and Beppu

I've earned a short respite from translating for my tireless, tourist parents. I came back to Nishinomiya late last night, head back up to Tokyo Wednesday evening. Today I have class and work, and then I need to hack together a more detailed breakdown of my thesis due in early March. Busy busy busy, so photo dump, photo dump, photo dump.

I really wish Google would let you upload more than one image at a time. It's like blogging in the Dark Ages. I don't know how St. Augustine managed.

Nagasaki Peace Park

Nagasaki China Town and Confucian Shrine

Kumamoto Suizenji Koen

Beppu Jigoku (The Hells!)

Photo Dump 2: Karatsu and Imari

My parents and I got into the small Kyushuan town of Karatsu on Sunday. It's famous mostly for its pottery, made largely by the descendants of Korean potters brought over to Japan during Toyotomi Hideyoshi's invasion from 1592 to 1598. We spent two nights in this lovely 旅館 (ryokan, Japanese inn) and toured around the kilns in town and in neighbouring Imari. Karatsu is better known for its earthenware, Imari more famous for its porcelain. It's great, I'm learning all sorts of pottery-related Japanese words while translating for my parents. I now know how to say, for instance, porcelain, fired ware, and kiln in Japanese, and I know what the first level of a stepped kiln is called, (you can see a couple below) and how to refer to each successive level. It's very, very good practice, though to what end exactly I'm not entirely sure.

Anyway, the rents are already sleeping, and I don't want to wake them up with my typing, so it's another photo dump.

PS: It's really great having my parents here. Did I mention that bit?