Day 10 Pictures
Today was a free day in Nagasaki and was also Easter Sunday.
Our first task was to buy a day pass for the extensive tram network that Nagasaki offers. The trams in Nagasaki were a mix of really old, almost antique trams alongside the more modern versions. We were told that Nagasaki bought up other cities old stock as they phased out their trams.
We piled on a tram and headed to where the hypocentre of the Nagasaki bombing was.
At this park there is one column that was the remains of the local Catholic Church that remarkably still had a statue of Jesus and one apostle attached to the top of it. The column had been moved to this park so that a new Cathedral could be built on the old site.
We then made the short walk to the peace park and looked at all the monuments donated to Nagasaki by various cities and countries throughout the world.
We then hiked up the hill to the Catholic Cathedral before heading back to the station area to grab a bite to eat. I am afraid a diet of mostly Japanese food got the better of us here and we ended up at a burger place!
Back onboard the trams to the so called spectacles bridge. This bridge has two arches which when seen in reflection on the river give the impression of a pair of glasses. Unfortunately for us it was a little too breezy and the effect was not as we expected due to ripples on the water.
Next up we visited Sofuku-ji a Chinese temple in the area. It was interesting to see how much the Chinese and Japanese temples differed. The Chinese was a little more ornate and most obviously it was painted red. In this temple was a huge cauldron that was used to make and serve a type of gruel to victims of the 1681 famine.
Nagasaki was quite a different city to others we had visited in Japan. It was a lot more multi cultural and there was visible evidence of other peoples culture present. Not least of which was our final stop for the day before dinner. This was the Glover Gardens. These gardens are set on a hill and also contain several European style houses and other buildings. The gardens were quite lovely and had spectacular views out over Nagasaki harbour. The homes also had fabulous verandas where one could expect to see the well to do sipping their tea or G&T.
In one of the houses in the gardens there was a tribute to Puccini’s Madama Butterfly which was set in Nagasaki.
We stopped off at the tea house for some tea and local speciality cake which was a pound cake. The area had a strong Portuguese influence and this cake imported from there had become the local speciality. Our hotel was also built in a Portuguese style. All these factors sometimes had me wondering if we were still actually in Japan.
After the gardens we went to Holland Slope which is a road leading up to the mainly western area of Nagasaki. So named because of the large number of Dutch that used to inhabit the area. We then went back to our hotel to rest before dinner.
The whole group met at 7pm to go to a local hotel bar for a farewell drink with our American contingent. The group of six were leaving the tour here to head over to Seoul.
After our drinks and goodbyes a few of decided that in honour of the multicultural nature of the city we would seek out some Indian food for dinner.
After the food stop we wandered back to the bar we had been to the previous night but it was closed. We did find another to visit for a night cap before a relatively early night as the next day was, yet again, another early start.
Day 10 Pictures