Hi, everyone.
How are you doing?

We are having one of the biggest festival in Nagasaki called “Lantern Festival”.
It’s held based on Chinese New Year.
All the city area is covered with beautiful lanterns, so it’s very beautiful.

This one is shot in China town.

This one is shot in Minato park.

This is a lion dance. They also have dragon dance.

It’s near China town.
Pink colored lanterns are so beautiful.

This one is near Spectacles bridge.
Yellow lanterns are so beautiful.

There are many guests who come to Nagasaki for the festival.
They are illustrators and came to Nagasaki by hitchhiking.

They became friends in the hostel.
It’s good to make a new friends while you are on vacation 🙂

They are friendly Korean boys.
I hope they enjoyed their stay in Nagasaki.

We had a nice time with them 🙂
Thanks for staying with us!

Spring is just around the corner.
We’re excited to see Sakura flowers.
See you next time!

Hi, everyone!
It’s cold in Nagasaki city.

In January, we had guests who are college students from USA!
They were so nice and we had a great time with them 🙂

On the last day, each student had a presentation about what they discovered or learned about Japan.
It was interesting to know how American students feel about Japan and what is interesting about Japan for them.

After the presentation, we threw a farewell party.
We served them Sara Udon which is one of Nagasaki specialities.

We had a really nice time with them!
We hope they also enjoyed their stay in Nagasaki and come back to Nagasaki again.

In the middle of January, we had heavy snow.
This is a neighbor of Hostel AKARI.

As February starts, they already started preparing Lantern Festival that is going on between 16th Feb and 4th Mar.
We’re so excited.

We made an original information board.
If you have an opportunity, please have a look at it and enjoy the festival.

Recently, we have many family guests.
This cute family is from Spain.
Look at baby’s face, he is so cute 🙂

This family is from Taiwan.
They went to Bio Park, which is a zoo in Nagasaki,
They enjoy the zoo!
Thank you for your stay!

It’s getting cold in Japan.
Take a good care of yourself everybody.
See you soon!

Hi, this is the first post in 2018.
How did you spend New Year season?

On New Year’s eve, we had soba noodle in the living room, and headed to a temple hit the bell.
Hitting the bell in a temple is a Japanese custom to celebrate New Year.

After having the soba noodle, we went to this temple.
We luckily had Matcha inside the temple.

This one is a first sunrise in 2018.
It’s said that the first sunrise is a fortune thing in Japan.

We put a calender at the reception.

We hope this year will be great one for you 🙂
See you in Nagasaki!

Hi, everyone!
We are enjoying breezy Autumn.
There will be Autumn leaves season very soon.

We had a festival where two guys with fox maskes make acrobatic moves on bamboo polls which is 10m high.
It was held in Wakamiya Inari Shrine and the festival is called “Takengei”.
It was exciting although it was raining a bit.

This is a main building of the shrine.

Fox is a secred animal in the shrine.

This is a shrine gate with a good night view.

We saw fireworks after the festival. It was lucky.

This is a nice, friendly and wonderful couple from England!
It’s their second time to come to our hostel.
They have cool tattoos everywhere on their bodies!
Thank you for your stay!!

This is a tattoo of a famous ghibli movie called “Ponpoko”. He has to put colors in it. Wow, we are sure it’s going to turn out to be an awesome one!

Here’s a cute family from Belgium.
Look at cute smiles of the kids!!

By the way, there are two bridges to go to our nearest tram stop from our hostel.
One is a stone bridge which looks beautiful and you need to take stairs of it.
Another one is just an ordinary flat bridge which is easier to access the tram stop than the stone bridge.
We just found out that many of our guests choose to take the stone bridge.

For example the couple from England,,

Then the family from Belgium,,

It’s a fun way to make your journey more attractive and exciting 🙂
There is a tiny differences between those two bridges, but we want to take more fun and exciting way during we are travelling. It’s very interesting 🙂

Enjoy Autumn! Don’t get cold.

Breezy wind is blowing in Nagasaki.
Autumn is coming.

These two guests met here and became friends.
They look so alike.
Their smiles made me smile 🙂

This is a souvenir from guests from Czech Republic.
Its design is very nice 🙂

This is a ship used for Nagasaki festival called “Okunchi”.
It’s going to be held on 7th, 8th and 9th of October.

This picture was taken from inside tram that runs Nagasaki city.
It’s near Dejima.

We threw a takoyaki party.
We cooked so many takoyaki!

Looks so yummy!

We’re glad everybody was happy with the party!
These guests, also our friends :),  are from Switzerland.
Thanks for coming all the way to Nagasaki!

We hope you have a good time in this Autumn!
Have a great day!!

It’s the end of August.
Time flies so fast.

Hostel AKARI is running our hostel keeping our pace.
We are growing vegetables outside of the hostel.

We baked scone using basil that we are growing.

On 19th and 20th, there was summer festival along the riverside.
There were some people wearing Yukata that looked beautiful.
Spectacles bridge changes its face in every season.
It amuses us every time.

We had guests from Korea.
Kids were happy to stay in a bunk bed.
We were happy to see that 🙂

This is handmade instrument called cajon, we named it AKARI CAJON.
You can play it in the hostel.

This is an object sold at a shop nearby hostel.
It’s inspired by Nagasaki festival called Takengei, 竹ん芸.

Enjoy your summer!
Hasta la vista.

It’s now August.
Time flies so fast we can’t catch up sometimes.

We have some hydrangea flowers in front of the entrance.
It starts blooming finally.

There is Peace Ceremony on 9th August.
We are making thousand of cranes to donate at the ceremony.

The end of July, there was a festival and we saw some fantastic fireworks.

This one is ship for Nagasaki ceremony called”Syourou Nagashi”.
They make it to commemorate the ones who died in last year, normally built by their relatives.
And they bring them to the port and leave them flow in the sea.
The ceremony takes place on every 15th of August.

AKARI staff is building a musical instrument called “cajon”.

It’s hot everyday in Nagasaki.
Enjoy the sun!
Waiting for you in AKARI hostel!

S.HONDA