Nagasaki

Nagasaki is one of those places I have always wanted to visit since moving to Japan, I was lucky enough to find some time this past summer.

Nagasaki is south of Nagoya, located on the island of Kyushu.  Below is the front of Nagasaki station.

One reason I wanted to visit Nagasaki is to see the atomic bomb museum and adjacent peace park.  According to the sign below, it's all to the right. 

I did not take any photos inside museum but there were many sad exhibits, the accounts of what happen and the record of everyone who passed away during the bomb.  Around the museum is a large peace park with many statues and paper cranes.

The statue below was designed by a local Nagasaki person to commemorate the 50th anniversary, it was dedicated in 1997.  The child in the mother's arms represents Japan on the day of the atomic bombing, the mother is all the countries that came to help and make Japan who she is today.

This monument, Hypocenter Cenotaph, marks the location of ground zero.

Simular to Hiroshima, there are paper cranes everywhere.  These are typically folded as school projects and displayed at the park as a sign of peace.

Me infront of the Fountain of Peace, in the area known as the Zone of Hope.

More cranes.

This is the famous Peace Statue, erected in 1955.  There are some symbols in the statue, The right hand points to the threat of nuclear weapons, the let hand symbolizes world peace, the face expresses prayerfulness with eyes closed in the memory of those who died.  The folded right leg symbolizes quiet meditation while the left leg is poised for action in assisting humanity.

From the peace park, there is a walking path that goes pass different shrines and monuments, below is the sign leading up to the Sanno Shinto Shrine. Toilet to the right, 130 meters.

The in-formal name for this is the one-legged torii, it was partly destroyed in the blast but maintained as a monument.  The hypocenter is about 800 meters away.

The torii was also rotated about 30 degrees, it's amazing this half still remains standing.  The parts of the torii that fell are kept about 3 meters behind on the ground.

The stone below was once the center of the torii.

Looking up from the stairs leading up to the shrine.

Another site in Nagasaki, not related to the atomic bomb is the Memorial to the Martyrdom of the 26 saints of Japan.  

These are 26 catholic saints who were prosecuted in 1587 and were sainted under Pope Pius IX.

Another popular part of Nagasaki is Chinatown.  I'm not sure if I was lucky or if a chinese party happens here daily, but I showed up there just in time for a parade and fireworks show.

Chinatown is kind of + shaped, and at each end of the plus is little shrines with burning incense.  Also at each of these tables are food and pig-heads.

The parade was a large dragon that ran down the center of the plus and on to a park.  The dragon would stop throughout the walk to dance and scare little kids.

Below the dragon is doing a dance, running in circles trying to tie itself into a knot.

Here the dragon is about to exit the covered area, safely cross the street and go to the park

At the park, the dragon continued to dance on stage, people over here were enjoying BBQ and draft beer.

Are are a couple of famous bridges along the Nagashima River in central Nagasaki.  The most famous of which is below, it's called spectacles, because of the reflection it makes with the river.

Nagoya to Nagasaki to Kumamoto and Back

Some companies in Japan, north of Tokyo were asked to work an alternative schedule this past summer.  Working from Saturday through Wednesday and taking the weekend off on Thursday and Friday.  The idea was to save energy by shifting high power consuming activities like large factories to run less during the week and more during the weekend when power consumption is less.  This indirectly was applied to my work schedule too, for the past three months I have been taking the weekend on Thursday and Friday and this gave me the opportunity to take some long distance trips around Japan.

The first such trip I took was from Nagoya to Nagasaki to Kumamoto and back to Nagoya.  The total trip time to Nagasaki from Nagoya is about 6 hours by bullet and express train, but I had an over night stop over in Hakata, so the trip did not seem so long.  

Tain mania in Japan is people who run around and take photos of trains.  So get ready, here is my train (and other mass transit) mania blog post.

Above is a map showing the JR route from Nagoya to Nagasaki.  You can see were the transfer at Hakata Station is, the google map flag near the lower left.  I took the first part of the trip to Hakata on the Tokaido shinkansen in an empty green car, four seats across.

Below is the shinkansen platform at Hakata station, on the right is the Tokaido train, the kind of train that run to Tokyo.  The train on the right is a Kyushu Shinkansen, it run south to Kagoshima.

The next morning I completed the trip from Hakata to Nagasaki, below is the ticket between the two stations.

It's really amazing the amount of space in Japan used for rice production.

Below is the train I took to Nagasaki, a 787 Kagome.

Nagasaki station is a terminus station, the tracks end here.

Around Nagasaki city, you get around using these old school trolly cars made by Mitsubishi.  There are now newer one, but these are more fun.  They have wood plank floors.

The next leg of my trip was from Nagasaki to Kumamoto.  This trip used three different mass transit services to get to Kumamoto, the JR train to Isahaya, private Shimabara rail to Shimabara port, a ferry across the port and a bus to Kumamoto.

Below is the JR sea side liner to Isahaya.  If you are using a JR rail pass, it is possible to go around the bay to Kumamoto, it's actually faster and easier and the only option shown on google maps.  The map above is the car route, but it is approximately the same route I took using trains and boats.

Below is the Shimabara private rail car, they run only one car trains and collect cash money at the end of your trip.  At Isahaya, the Shimabara rail company uses platform 0.

In route to Shimabara port.

Below is the Ferry from Shimabara port to Kumamoto port.  The paint job kind of reminds me of ferry's in Seattle.

Pushing away from Shimabara.

The route I took to Kumamoto takes a long time, about 4 hours.  This is because none of the different services line up their schedules.  Between each transfer was a 30 minute to 1.5 hour wait.  Below is the bus to Kumamoto.

On the bus.

Kumamoto also uses old school trolleys with wooden floors.  I guess if these things work since forever, no need to really stop using them.

Traveling back to Nagoya, this was the train I took from Kumamoto to Hakata, very pimp.  At Hakata, I had only 3 minutes to transfer to the Tokaido rail, so no photos there.

The Kyushu shinkansen has a really nice interior, very modern seats.

In Nagoya, I was lucky to have a shinano train as the final leg of my trip home!  Shinano is the train to Nagano, I will post about that later (the second long distance trip I took during energy saving work schedule).

Hong Kong: Food

Maybe cliche, but chinese food and dim sum in Hong Kong is good.  Kind of like how Korean BBQ is better in Korea.

 Much better compared to Seattle, Windsor or even Japan (but I have not had dim sum in Yokohama yet).

There are many good places to eat in Hong Kong, but let me recommend Luk Yu, it is not far from Central station.  Really good Dim Sum, breakfast at 9am or 11am, dinner at 7ish.

Dim Sun is served by people walking around with the food on the menu in tow. Short blog post about Luk Yu.

Below is the menu, it is best to ask the people walking around to just open the wicker warmers and look inside.  You can always order by pointing.

Another popular food in Hong Kong is fresh juice.

It's kind of all over and cheap.

Looking north just before the nightly light show!