Nagasaki was part of our 9 day road trip through the Kyushu Islands a few years ago and we spent two very busy days and nights here. There were four of us on the road trip, me, hubby and our two good friends Cheryl and Vaughan. Vaughan and hubby did all of the driving.

We stayed at a hotel called Hotel Monterey, a great location and decorated in a Spanish Villa style.

Our first night was spent at Dejima Wharf, I’d read that it was quite lively and had a few restaurants. Maybe it had just opened or not been open for long but there didn’t seem to be that many places to choose from. We opted for a seafood restaurant where we sat outside and could cook our own seafood. I have to say it wasn’t such a great dinner as half the things we were served I couldn’t identify and the small bbq didn’t seem adequate to cook anything properly.

After dinner we found a bar upstairs called St. Andrews Jigger Inn, playing live music and everyone singing along, we even got up to have a dance!

The next morning with heavy heads we had a cooked breakfast at the Hotel Monterey and headed out to explore.

Nagasaki has a very international feel to it, with many Dutch, Portuguese and English buildings still standing. We headed first up to Hollander Slope, so called because many Dutch people lived here from around 1600.

From here we took a tram to another historical building, Glover House and Gardens.

Glover House

Glover House was built by Thomas Blake Glover, a Scottish merchant who arrived in Japan from Shanghai in 1859. He set up his own trading company, Glover and Co. Glover House is a western style building with imported furniture from Scotland and England. The carpenter is purportedly Koyama Hide who built the Basilica of the Twenty-Six Holy Martyrs. Source: Visit Nagasaki

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Nagasaki is a big cruise ship port as you can see from above photo.

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There is some Japanese influence in the rooms, but mostly it is of the old heavy wooden style favoured during the 1800s in England.

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In this bottom right photo my hubby is with the Japanese gardener, and while I popped to the ladies he struck up a conversation with her. He speaks fairly fluent Japanese and she was so taken aback by him that she dropped everything and bombarded him with questions about his life, they found out that they were exactly the same age, even with the same month, now that’s a coincidence!

With the morning over and our visit to Glover House done, hubby said it was his turn now and he wanted first to go to the Sakamoto International Cemetery and then lastly the Peace Park and A Bomb Museum.

Sakamoto International Cemetery

Trying to find our way to the Cemetery was a bit of a nightmare, but we eventually found it tucked away at the back of some houses.

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I wish I had taken more photos of the cemetery but felt a bit morbid doing this. Cemeteries in other countries with foreigners are so interesting. It makes you realise how determined people were hundreds of years ago and how easy we have it today. It would have taken them weeks or months to arrive at their destination and we complain about an hour delay to our plane!

Nagasaki Peace Park

It feels appropriate to be writing this post now as is the 75th anniversary of the Atomic Bomb on 9 August. It was the second bomb to be dropped by the United States after Japan still refused to surrender after Hiroshima. The exact number of people killed will never be known as all records were destroyed and many bodies were totally obliterated.

To walk around the museum is very sobering to see the destruction and devastation that was caused that day. Of course there is no mention of Japan’s part in WWII.

After experiencing that nightmarish war,
that blood-curdling carnage,
that unendurable horror,
Who could walk away without praying for peace?
This statue was created as a signpost in the 
struggle for global harmony.
Standing ten meters tall, 
it conveys the profundity of knowledge and
the beauty of health and virility. 
The right hand points to the atomic bomb,
the left hand points to peace,
and the face prays deeply for the victims of war. 
Transcending the barriers of race 
and evoking the qualities of Buddha and God,
it is a symbol of the greatest determination
ever known in the history of Nagasaki 
and the highest hope of all mankind.— Seibo Kitamura (Spring 1995)

And that concludes “N”

SAYONARA!