Adventures in Japan

Day Five: Nagasaki

We got to sleep in a little bit this morning. That was nice.

This hotel comes with a comes with a complimentary breakfast. It was nice.

We got to leave our big bulky bags at the hotel. That was awesome!


This is the train that we caught to Nagasaki.


This is a close up of the train. As you can tell by the name, the fare was cheap, the whiskey was cheaper and there was a good chance that you'd get thrown through a window before you reached your destination.


And this is a sign we saw in the train station. I believe there's a misplaced article there.

I guess here is where I get the heavy stuff out of the way. We didn't see any of the heavy stuff. We didn't go to see the plaque on the ground that showed where Fat Man fell. We didn't go to the Atomic Bomb Museum, and read reams and reams of horribly depressing accounts of horrendous tragedy. Which it was. But that is not why we went to Nagasaki today. We wanted to see Nagasaki today, not Nagasaki 1945.

And Nagasaki now is a whole lot of nice. It may well have always been this way. Nagasaki is where the first non-Asians landed. It was the one open port during Japan's century of seclusion. There is a lot of interesting stuff in Nagasaki's history.

Unfortunately, the bomb isn't the only bit of tragedy in Nagasaki's past. The first foreigners who landed here soon brought their old timey religion with them. And religion and tragedy seem to go hand in hand. As Christianity became more popular, the government of the time grew worried that the Christians might soon want to convert the whole country (what would ever give them that idea?). The best thing to do in any political/religious boondoggle? Let's look in our history books and see if we can't find an answer. Let's see...

Oh yeah! Crucifiction!


Our first stop today was a memorial to 26 souls crucified for the reasons stated above.


More interesting than the memorial was the church behind it. Its spires were all sparkly and multi-coloured and glinty in the sun. This being Sunday, there was a service on and singing filled the air. It followed us as we explored the graveyard behind the church. The graveyard led us to a gigantic Buddha riding on the back of a turtle.


That was an odd walk.

Up and down a steepish hillside. In the sun. The hot, hot sun. And me with no hat. And only half a head of hair.

We walked on to Spectacles Bridge. A double arch bridge. Either the oldest or only one in Japan. Or both. It got the name because when the tide is right and the the light is reflected just so, it looks like a pair of glasses. The tide was out and the light wasn't right so it looked like a pair of Paris Hilton's glasses. Gross.


Since we were in the neighbourhood, we checked out a couple more temples. These temples were special. They were Chinese. All red and stuff. The Chinese temples made us crave Chinese food. So we walked to Chinatown and supped. We supped on Chanpon, which is a Nagasaiki specialty. Noodles and seafood and pork and broth. And everything nice. With a couple gyoza thrown in for good measure.

Bellies full we trudged up another hill to look at the oldest Christian church in all of Japan. I should mention now that we were both quite sunburned by this time. And I was feeling pretty out of it. So we took pictures of the church and then sat down for a beer. And a slow roasted pork sandwich.


On the way down from the church we learned something new. Nagasaki is where bowling was first introduced to Japan. Crazy.



We took a crazy train back to Fukuoka. It was all futuristic and stuff. They've got some great trains down here in Kyushu.



Ice treats in the shape of flowers!