Nagasaki

The bus ride over the mountains from Beppu to Nagasaki waa beautiful. Some of the leaves are starting to change.

We rented a fairly large apartment for four nights and it had a rooftop terrace. I thought it might be too many days but Nagasaki has a lot more to offer than just the nuclear bomb sites. It's history is rich and it's a major place where East met West.

First it was the Portuguese who traded and spread Christianity here. Nagasaki has one of the best bays on this southern island, so it was only natural for foreign sailors to stop here because they were coming from the south.

But the shogun's tired of the Portuguese and kicked them out and allowed the Dutch to trade from a tiny prison-like a compound called Dejima. This lasted for 200 years during the Edo period, when Japan was closed off to the rest of the world except for small trade with the Dutch and some Chinese.

When Japan opened up to the world in the Meiji restoration, Nagasaki was crucial because it had coal, dry docks for shipbuilding, and steel works. Mitsubishi started here for example and still builds giant ships, among other things.

But of course it's most famous because it was the second and last place where a nuclear bomb was dropped during war. The Peace Museum and ground zero, which the Japanese call the hypo center, are fascinating and sobering. Even in mid November the museum was packed.

On August 9, 1945, the bomber Bockscar originally wanted to drop it on Kokura, an industrial city north of here. Cloud and smoke cover prevented that and Nagasaki was the secondary target. There was a lot of cloud cover here but during a break, they dropped the bomb. It missed the main port area and landed in a residential area just north. Six days later, the Japanese surrendered and WW2 was over.

But there's so much more the city has to offer. We're staying near the train station, across from Stadium City, a giant mall. I'm not a mall person but I walked over alone at night to check it out. I didn't get the connection but it's a soccer stadium surrounded by two mall towers! There's also a basketball arena next to it. They're called Peace Stadium and Happiness Arena. How wonderful.

Nagasaki is in a big valley that leads down to the bay, so some neighborhoods are hilly. Its name means Long Cape. There's an excellent bus and tram system but we did a lot of walking to see several shrines and temples. There's a large garden complex called Glover Garden on the hill above the bay. That's the former home of a Scotsman who helped bring the industrial revolution to Japan. Tea, coal mining, steel, ship building, you name it, he had his hands in the trade. Thomas Glover was the man.

There's a cable car which they call the ropeway. It goes up to mount Inasa and we were lucky to have an amazing sunset and spectacular views of the city below. Of course the food here has been amazing. We just love the city and we're glad to have had four full days to take our time to see it.

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