Nagasaki

After Hiroshima, it was interesting to also visit the most recently A-bombed city, Nagasaki. Here’s the rundown on how I spent my time!

I really enjoyed Nagasaki, and it’s disappointing that so few tourists make it down there. But the maybe that’s why I enjoyed it so much! In Nagasaki I stayed at a really nice hostel called Akari. It was very welcoming, and I met some really nice people there, including Lex and Martine who are on a massive trip of their own!

Nagasaki has an amazing history beyond the dropping of the Fat Boy atomic bomb. For over 200 years it was the only point of trade between Japan and the outside world. This was through and island in Nagasaki Harbour called Dejima, which was run by the Dutch as part of their massive trade network. I visited the island, which is now pretty much surrounded by reclaimed land, and it’s been rebuilt to look like what it did then.

After that I took a tram to the Peace Park. This is a large park near the hypocentre that is full of sculptures to encourage world peace.
I found a New Zealand sculpture in the park, it was quite nice.

This is the main big one, it represents the threat of nuclear weapons and the desire for peace..

The hypocentre in Nagasaki is marked very differently to Hiroshima. In Hiroshima it is above a street a few blocks back from the main parks that people see, it isn’t well signposted and most people don’t see it. In Nagasaki it’s quite a big deal- it’s got its own park and has a large obelisk raised above it. There were a few schoolkids around it when I was there initially.

Later it was quiet.

Just like Hiroshima, the museum was over-run with schoolkids. I’d recommend going at lunchtime as it seems a bit quieter- I hit it towards the end so it went from being very quiet to very busy!

This was an amazing artifact of a piece of wood that showed the shadow of plants that sheltered it from the blast.

One of the things I really noticed about Hiroshima and Nagasaki is the comparisons that can be drawn physically between them and two major NZ cities. Hiroshima can be seen as broadly similar to Christchurch- it’s on a flat plain with hills and water nearby. Nagasaki is very similar to Wellington, flatish valleys surrounded by steep hills with a harbour in the middle. To put it in perspective, the bomb would have hit Wellington somewhere near the hospital in Newtown.

One evening I headed up the ropeway (cablecar) to Mt Inasa with a couple of guys from the hostel to take some photos. It was a great view from the top, and really worth the visit. As you can see from the photos, it’s sort of like the view from Mt Victoria in Wellington, NZ. It is a bit higher though- around 333m, compared to Mt Vic’s 200ish. Tinakori Hill would be a better comparison (height wise)- it comes in at 320m. But I digress…

Anyway, here are the photos!

So yeah, the rest of my time in Nagasaki was spent hanging out at my hostel, getting my camping gear ready to post back to NZ. As I was doing this I discovered some major mold on my tent (which I hadn’t used in a month). So I got a few strange looks whilst playing the “crazy foreigner” card as I was on my hands and knees scrubbing my tent on the footpath across the road from the hostel!

Also, while the tent was drying I discovered cracks around 1/4 of the spokeholes on my rear rim. Not cool.. So part of the rest of my time was take up researching good bike shops in Shanghai! More on that in a couple of posts, but I’m going through Chain’s Sprockets, on recommendation from the amazing Eleanor Moseman at Wander Cyclist. And if they can build the wheels that she’s relied on then they’ll handle anything I’m going to throw at them!

Right, that should keep you going for a little bit- next exciting installment covers my great slow boat trip to China where I got comp’d to an individual room!