Day 9 Pictures
Sleep did not come easily. It was not because this was a futon only place but the smoke had me so bunged up I could hardly breathe.
I arose early and went for a walk, with some others from our group, around town in the morning light to get some more fresh air. The township was really quite lovely and a complete opposite to the place we were staying in. After our morning walk we headed back to the guesthouse for a really nice breakfast of fruit, toast and eggs.
For the first time on the tour everyone was ready and waiting at the station for our next train well in advance of the time set by our tour group leader. I wonder why?
The talk amongst the group was of getting to Nagasaki and a decent shower.
Prior to reaching Nagasaki we had three train rides and another garden to visit.
Our first point of call today was Suizenji. We caught the Trans-Kyushu express train from Miyaji to Suizenji. This trip is reported to be one of the most scenic in Japan and involved a switch back where the train stopped and the driver walked to the other end of the train and we went backwards down the next section of the railway. Again the train stopped and the driver walked back to the front and well pulled out down the next section of the track facing forward. This is the first time I had experienced a switch back on a railway and it was most novel.
At Suizenji we stopped by a local sushi place and ordered our lunch boxes before heading to the gardens.
These gardens were quite lovely and had small recreations of other areas in Japan including Mt Fuji and the Fushimi Inari shrine.
One down side about some of the gardens including this one is that there is always the intrusion of the twentieth century evident. It was really difficult to get nice pictures of the gardens without having some ugly building from the surrounding skyline evident in the photo.
After a good hour at the gardens we went back to the sushi shop to collect our lunch boxes and then back to the station for our next train ride, and of course lunch on the train.
An hour and a quarter later we were at Tosu where we made our 7 minute connection to a Tosu to Nagasaki train with ease. I cannot tell you enough about how wonderful the train system is in Japan. Where else in the world could you attempt a 7 minute connection at a railway station? We did this with ease and joined yet another different type of train called the Kamome.
Just over one and half hours later we were in Nagasaki the site of the second Atomic bomb that was dropped on Japan.
We made our way to our hotel by taxi and were all checked in by 4pm. At this point I am sure the hot water consumption in the hotel went through the roof.
Later in the evening, all freshly scrubbed and feeling human again we met up for a walking tour of the china town area of Nagasaki. The gates to the area had wonderful neon images of Phoenix on them. We ate at a local Chinese restaurant (for a change) and then continued the tour through some rather interesting parts (read seedy) of Nagasaki. The group then split and a few of us ventured to a local bar where some live music was being played. We had a great time sitting in this bar listening to two guitarist / singers who performed what could be best described as Japanese folk/rock. They were really quite good and their guitar picking skills were wonderful to listen to and watch.
The need for sleep after the previous evening’s fruitless attempts soon caught up with us. We then walked back to our hotel to a real bed and some sleep.
Day 9 Pictures