Nagasaki

Other than the earthquake that we felt when the alarm woke us around 11 pm our sleep was undisturbed. I woke a little after 5:30 am, lay for a bit and then got up. Majella was awake and by the time we were both moving Lucas was stirring.

I worked on the blog post I had abandoned last night. At 7 am I went down to the foyer and returned with two cups of coffee. We ate breakfast – yoghurt and coffee for Majella, banana and donut for Lucas, noodles and coffee for me – and got ready for the day. I published the blog post and posted a link to Facebook.

By then Majella and Lucas were restless so we decided we might as well go. We had seats booked for 9:32 am but would need time to move between subway and train in a large and unfamiliar station.

On the way out of the hotel Majella noticed there were packaged croissants on the counter with a sign inviting guests to take one. We took one each to supplement our breakfast. They were soft and not to French standard but tasty enough.

We walked to Watanabe-dori and caught the very crowded subway to Hakata. There we ascended several levels to ground and found the JR ticketing area. I had thought I might try the machines for reserving seats on future journeys but that area looked busy and complicated so I decided to leave it. We browsed a few shops instead.

As we approached the gates to head for our platform I spotted a sign about passes. When I showed the man there our reserved tickets he seemed to be asking about the passes so I gave him the lot. He made 3 stacks of 2 tickets for our 2 segments and a pass. Those went into the gate as a stack and we were checked through to Nagasaki.

Waiting on the platform was preferable to missing our train. It arrived about 15 minutes before departure time so we boarded, found our reserved seats, and waited to depart. After a string of announcements, fortunately with a sprinkling of English, we departed right on time.

The train ran slowly through the inner city but soon accelerated as we got further out. Although we could see tree clad hills in the distance on both sides, adjacent to the line was built up area with apartments and houses for the first 30 minutes. Beyond that we were in countryside with more scattered areas of housing. We passed through a few small cities or large towns that interrupted the farmland on our way to Takeo-Onsen where we were to change trains.

The sky this morning had been cloudy and the city seemed misty or hazy. By 10 am as we got further into the countryside there was still haze or mist but we could see blue sky and some scattered light clouds above.

We arrived at Takeo-Onsen on time at 10:38 am. Our Shinkansen to Nagasaki was scheduled for 11:03 am. In my planning I had selected those trains with a 25 minute change time rather than an earlier combination that allowed less than 5 minutes for the change. We could see the Shinkansen at the other platform when we arrived. As we came down the escalator we saw a sign indicating the direction to go and went that way past a man who checked our tickets.

That brought us into a foyer where Majella decided to explore a shop. There was time for that and I was not bothered when she suggested we might get coffee. Majella ordered blood orange sorbet for Lucas and 2 coffees. I paid and we sat to wait and wait.

Eventually the sorbet arrived and we saw some progress on our brewed coffees. It was 10:56 am when they arrived. We poured them into Majella’s keep cup, she grabbed the milk packages, and we bolted.

Platform 11 for our Shinkansen was out a door, up a long escalator, and along the platform from car 8 to car 2. We made it with a couple of minutes to spare. We drank the coffee on the train. It was good but not worth missing a train for.

Our first train had been near empty and our Shinkansen car looked similarly empty. On the first train we had seats A to C with 2 on each side of the aisle. The ticket I was looking at had row 7 so I assumed we had 7A to 7C and we sat accordingly.

A few moments later people appeared as if from nowhere and someone was claiming my seat. He was right. Moments later as I checked our tickets someone claimed the seat Lucas was sitting in. By the time we were in our correct seats, 7B, 8B, and 8C, our car was apparently full.

The Shinkansen picked up speed quickly and had just one stop before we reached Nagasaki after about 30 minutes. We walked through the station and once I managed to get oriented we found our way to the bus stop and used our IC cards to take a number 1 bus to Peace Park.

Peace Park is on the site of a prison that was destroyed when the atomic blast occurred nearby. A large level area sits on a hillside and is reached by a series of stairways or escalators. There is a smaller level area just below the top where there is a fountain. People suffering radiation sickness after the blast experienced great thirst and the fountain is in memory of that. Several of the memorials placed around the park by various nations were adorned with plastic bottles of water left by visitors.

On the top level we visited several of the national memorials, including one from First Nations Australians which included a representation of a coolamon, another reference to water. We read signs about how the large blue bronze statue at the head of the garden was symbolic of world peace before heading back down past more memorials.

We walked the short distance to the Hypocenter Park that commemorates the point above which the bomb exploded. In the centre of the park is a simple black column marking the hypocenter and a black prism representing the tombs of the thousands who died in or from the explosion. The park also featured a section of wall from Urakami cathedral that was mostly destroyed in the blast. It had been moved from the nearby site of the cathedral. A niche at the side of the park displayed the first of many strings of origami cranes that we would see.

Across a small stream and up a hill was the museum. Fortunately there were elevators that we used to avoid some, but not all, of the stairs.

Entry to the exhibition space was down a spiral ramp that symbolically wound back the years to 1945. Toward the bottom we saw a chain of 1000 cranes folded by a Dutch man from a single long piece of paper.

The exhibition was well designed and informative with multilingual signs. There was film of the explosion, photographs of the aftermath, and many artefacts damaged by the blast. The scale and intensity of destruction was vast but it was the effects on people that were most disturbing. Lucas spent a good chunk of time watching and listening to the recollections of survivors and stories of people they had lost.

I don’t think I had heard previously how Nagasaki came to be destroyed. The target that morning was Kokura but smoke and cloud obscured it and the alternative, Nagasaki, was targeted. It also had cloud cover but a gap appeared and the bomb was dropped. Our plans for tomorrow involve a visit to Kokura for unrelated reasons.

The parks and museum took us a little longer than expected. My plan from then was to find lunch on our way to the next stop. Soon after we left the museum Majella spotted a shopping mall across the main street so we headed there. First stop was a bakery. Most of the products were wrapped in plastic and after my morning croissant I was not keen. Lucas also declined but Majella selected a mini-pizza, expecting it would be reheated. Not so, but she bought it anyway and said later she enjoyed it. We continued into the food store where I selected a large apple and Lucas found a bag of crisps. Majella also picked out a package of grapes and some dried banana. We found some seats in the mall and ate lunch.

Our walk to the one-legged Torii was on level ground until the last push up steep stairs. It is another remnant of the bomb. One leg was somehow protected from the blast which knocked over the other. The other leg and crosspieces were lying nearby. It has been left as a reminder.

From there we walked down to the main street where my plan was to catch a succession of buses to the Nagasaki Ropeway. When we had waited a while with no bus appearing we walked on in the direction we needed to go. That took us across the river where we finally caught a bus 2 stops and walked up stairs to a Shinto shrine adjacent to the ropeway station.

The ropeway gondolas run at 20 minute intervals so after buying tickets we sat and waited. The ride up had commentary and a view of the forest below and hillside houses either side.

At the top of Mount Inasa we walked out to the observation area for views across Nagasaki. The building offering a higher viewpoint had a cafeteria at the base, a ramp going up to the observation deck, and a restaurant at top. We walked up the ramp and some stairs on a tower and enjoyed the panoramic views.

As we reached the bottom on our return we saw what Lucas had evidently noticed earlier, a street piano. This one was a grand and Lucas enjoyed a few minutes of spontaneous playing. The few people in the cafe seemed happy enough to listen.

At 3:55 pm we called halt and dashed back to the ropeway. We made the 4 pm gondola with not a moment to spare.

From the base of the ropeway we walked back down the stairs to the bus stop where we had arrived. Signage there suggested a 20 or 40 bus for getting to Nagasaki Station so we were dubious when a 17 bus rolled up. Majella managed to get confirmation from a woman who was boarding and we followed her on.

At Nagasaki Station we found the gate for our Shinkansen and the sign declaring cars 4 to 6 for non-reserved seating. We then found the stairs and went up to the platform. It was only when we were waiting in line to board that we saw the escalators. We had been too concerned about getting there for the 4:43 pm departure to spare time looking earlier. We had less than 5 minutes to wait for boarding and soon after we were on our way.

I was aware there was just 3 minutes to change trains at Takeo-Onsen and assumed we would have to retrace our route from this morning without the coffee stop. That wasn’t necessary. It seemed a large proportion of the people on the train were making the same connection and the other train was waiting just across the platform. We dashed, found seats, and relaxed. At a city a couple of stations up the track more people arrived to fill our car but we were settled and there was no problem.

On arrival at Hakata we decided on eating there before going on to the hotel. It was cooling outside and Majella had seen a sign for eateries on the 9th and 10th floors of the station building. We headed up but had some challenges interpreting posted offerings to find something that Lucas fancied. Eventually we settled on a place and ate skewers. Lucas had chicken skin on skewers, Majella had a collation of vegetables and a piece of meat on hers, and I had steak done differently on 3 skewers. Lucas had ginger ale and Majella and I shared a refreshing non-alcoholic beer. The meals were smaller than we expected but we won’t starve.

Down we went to the basement and beyond to ride the subway back to Watanabe-dori. We stopped by a Fresh Food Market to buy some breakfast – yoghurt, strawberries, bananas, and noodles for Lucas and me.

We arrived back at our room a little before 8 pm to find bags of fresh towels, bottled water, and other hotel items at the door where we had left a ‘Do not disturb’ sign to deter cleaning. While I worked on this Majella engaged Lucas in a game of Anagrams, her travel go-to. We must have been less tired than yesterday when we were all asleep before 8 pm.