Earlier today I was thinking I haven’t done anything today and I’m pretty OK with that. Then I remembered a couple of things. I stayed two nights in an expensive hotel in Nagasaki (which turned out to have another hideously hot room) for one real reason, to see the Atomic Bomb Museum. I tell people they don’t NEED to see the bomb museums but I figured after coming here a second time, I really should. I did that today and it was, as you would expect, very sobering. I went to the Hiroshima museum years ago and it’s something I only need to do once in my life. Oddly enough there was a book at my gradeschool that showed all the pictures from the Hiroshima museum. Anyway, I’m guessing no one reads this and looks at my iffy food pictures, so here’s breakfast.

The hotel appears to have a deal with a local restaurant and it’s a bit of a walk, but the breakfast was great.

I had an OK night of sleep in my hot room but I really screwed up my back yesterday and it’s kind of unbearable. Some of the shorter seats in Japan make it worse. Anyway, after breakfast I limped my way to the museum and walked around the Peace Park. Here’s the hypocenter monument (the only picture I have of the area). I just wasn’t in the happiest mood, as you’d expect.

Nagasaki is in a small valley and there are lots of hills. Going up stairs is very painful right now and the only thing that really makes things better is rest, especially lying down. You really can’t do that in public. There are LOTS of stairs from the park to the museum, but luckily there are also elevators for older people (and me right now). You can see the clouds gathering and by the time I got my sad self out of the museum it was pouring.

One good thing about all the weird apps on my phone is my Japanese phone app. And my sister has a friend in Nagasaki who I called to ask about chiropractors. She says she never goes and her husband just goes to real medical clinics for his problems but she asked some coworkers who told me to try an acupuncturist. It’s a fairly quick streetcar ride there but I took a taxi. ¥2200-ish rather than ¥140, but it was raining and when I did the math it was only about $14US at the current exchange rate.

The acupuncturist was quite good but unfortunately, it didn’t completely clear up my back. I’ve had back problems in the past and there’s usually no quick fix. Plus, rain. Here’s a picture out of the front window.

It took about 3 hours because I just walked in. First they had me lie on a “water bed”. It felt like a foam bed with a gadget that squeezed my feet, but I guess there’s a rubber mat underneath and water jets that gently massage your back in interesting patterns. Then I went in and he did some manipulation similar to what my Osteopath does. Then the needles were inserted and pulled out. I’m used to going to a Chinese practitioner who left the needles in and attached electric doo-hickeys that shocked me for 20 minutes or so.

I made it back to the hotel and thought about getting lunch. It was about 2pm and there were huge lines at the restaurants. I just grabbed a Nagasaki pork bun and took it back to the hotel where I rested for the afternoon. I continue to skip lunch for the most part.

Then I went out to look for dinner. The restaurants in the building attached to the hotel seemed to be national chains and not especially Nagasaki-like, so I walked back to the station to get some champon. Unfortunately that’s when my back started to hurt quite a bit. The picture is bad because I was distracted and started eating before I remembered to take a picture.

I was scrunched into a booth that made things more painful and after a couple more bites I stood up to see if that would make things better and it did not. It hurt enough that I had to give up. I asked if I could take it to go and they said no, as I expected. It’s not something they do in Japan. But they did let me switch to a table and that worked. I also forgot to get my 5% hotel discount on the way out, but I did schedule another appointment with the acupuncturist for tomorrow morning. I’ll be seeing less of Sasebo, but if my back keeps hurting like this there’s no way I’d enjoy myself there.

Oh, and I did finally remember that I had ibuprofen with me the whole time. I just took some but I’m in for the evening so I won’t be able to tell unless I try walking up some stairs and there’s no way I’m going to try that. Time for some Netflix, I guess. I rejoined just for this eventuality, so I might as well.