Let's cut to the chase, going to Nagasaki means coming to terms with the fact that it, notably, was one of the two cities hit by the atomic bomb at the end of World War II. It isn't as well known from what I can tell as Hiroshima, but it is every bit as real. I knew that of course there will be various things related to the memory of the lives lost and all of it, and was not going to avoid those places even if it is weird to do this as an American. On this second lovely, rain-free day in Nagasaki, I decided to start it off by going there and experiencing it.
Around the area the bomb went off (the hypocenter they term it), there is first a large, modern museum, and then two different peace parks. I did the museum first, and it was really well done. The first rooms are all about the bomb and the immediate aftermath - the destruction, the radiation, the burns, the fires, everything else. From a first room with some mangled metal and rubble strewn around with a section on what they recovered from the nearby cathedral that was completely destroyed, it sets a tone. As does the next room with display case after display case of artifacts and photos. Much like the War Remnants Museum in Ho Chi Minh, this one doesn't pull any punches. There is one element of something a bit short of propaganda, where they've very much taken the side that Japan was on the verge of surrender so the bomb was not needed, but I was surprised it didn't outright paint the US as monsters.
That said, the last third of the museum is all about the nuclear proliferation from that point on, including some really well made diagrams of the size of stockpiles and amount of tests done by each country, and a really detailed timeline on how the world has wavered off and on around nuclear proliferation. Again, there is no malice in this, and understandably, the museum takes a very strong stance supporting denuclearization. On the whole, the museum is excellent.
The parks next to it are also nice, the first one which has what they believe to be the actual hypocenter, is mostly a small circular arae with a moving 20-foot high sculpture of a woman and baby, with simply the date & time of the bomb on it below. There's also then an obelisk like thing at the hypocenter. This area is a restrained and solemn. The other park, which is far larger, takes a more vibrant approach. Firstly, the statue there, entitled the peace statue, is large, audacious albeit still quite stunning. There's also a good 15-20 sculptures earlier up in the park that are mostly gifts of remembrance from various countries. Sadly, all the signage was in Japanese, so unless the sculpture itself had on it some info on its source (a few did, like ones from Brazil, Bulgaria, Egypt and others) it was hard to know say if a US one was there. The whoel park though is large, vibrant and if anything shows more the strength and reserve of Nagasaki, while the first park is the solemn remembrance of that day.
After that heavy start to the day, I wanted to go a bit brighter, so I headed up towards the one part of Nagasaki I hadn't really gone around in, which is the large hill area at the South end of the city, which houses namely the Glover Garden. Before taht i got a quick sushi nigiri set for lunch at a little sushi joint Sushi Kyo, which was quite nice and something I picked on the fly. It was also the first sushi place I've been to where the main sushi preparer was a woman, which was a nice twist to see.
The Glover Garden is named after Thomas Glover, a Scotsman who lived and helped modernize Japan right after the Meiji Restoration. The area does house his actual house and offices that he used at the time, but also has now expanded to include a larger park taht sits beyond what was his property. You start the route by taking two successive moving walkways (forget the term for them that run at a slight incline) and on this you also get a great view of Nagasaki. The route on teh top takes about 30 minutes meandering throuhg a few buildings, including his primary residence, and various great stonework fountains, plants, and mostly, views. The port is right in front of you, the bridges that cut across the bay leading out to sea are easily visible, as is much of Nagasaki proper. For views alone, it is worth a visit, but the history and the delicateness of the garden are plenty worth it on its own.
You also get nice spots on the walk down from Glover Garden towards normal sea level, from walking past the Oura Basilica, or my chosen handicraft shop, Rumian Glass Work, which is both a shop selling mostly blue glass work (plates, cups, vases, etc.) and the kiln and blast furnace and all that stuff is right there in teh shop. Really nice place and fairly affordable as well. This was helpful as my other shop that I checked out earlier in teh day was selling tortoise shell handicrafts which were ludicrously expensive (I guess fair enough?), so it was nice that this preplanned souvenir spot worked out well.
My last stop was one last ropeway, this one taking you 1,200 feet up Mt. Inasa. The ropeway has maybe the fastest cable car I've ever been on, and you reach the top in about 4 minutes. The weird part, I guess, is taht they run every twenty minutes, so far fifteen minutes it is just sitting there. They do run more frequently in the evening/night, and given how great the view was during the day, I do regret not making time to go at dusk or night, as it probably would look magical. From this angle, with most of the city center right in front of you, the river and bay to the right and endless forest to the left, Nagasaki does look stunning. There's also this really cool thing where at the angle where you can see the peace park peace sculpture (the audacious one), if you are not able to see it, you can press a button and then a green laser light will start blinking near it. No idea how this works, but its a really neat touch. The whole site up there is quite modern, and overall Mt. Inasa was my favorite ropeway of all, even if it wasn't as high up as Mt. Moiwa.
I then headed to the main covered shopping area, not to shop, but to get a truly long overdue haircut, which was a an ordeal. The first palce despite seeming to be empty said they were full - I think it was somewaht racist, but after going to another place where they had a ready to go sign saying that they are uanble to cut non-Japanese speakers because they don't want to misunderstand a request, I kind of get it. Anyway, I finally found a place that would take me, but then realized their razor numbering system is all different. In the end, he asked if I had a photo of what haircut I wanted, and I dug through and found a reasonably close one. I don't think I ended up with hair like the photo, but also wasn't worlds away, and like all Japanese things, the level of precision and neatness in all of it, including a nice shave, was great.
As was dinner, back in the main area, at Osakaya, which has nothing to do with Osaka, and is instead a fairly high-end, but still reasonably affordable yakiniku where all the meat is purportedly A5. I only say purportedly because I'm surprised then that it wasn't more expensive, but the beef definitely tasted buttery and brilliatn enough to be A5. I had one of their set options (rather than picking my own cuts) where you get qjuite a lot for ~$60, including two appetizers (one was a great beef tongue stew), two pieces of wagyu sushi (awesome), and then a series of cuts to grill, and the staff nicely strongly suggest they grill for you - the cuts all looked insane before grilled, adn tasted incredible after. My favorite being the one they termed as a Denver Cut, which was just so perfect. All of it was great though. There's a bunch of yakiniku's and a bunch of price points, and I honestly think this is the best value for money of all I've been to.
The night took me to spots that weren't open yesterday, starting at Bar Victor, an 80's styled bar with incredibly weird decor, that plays into the pleasantly weird main owner, Victor, who has owned it since the 90s. There was only one other person in there with me (the place at max can hold 20), and I asked him if there are too many bars, and his response was a combination of Monday is their quietest night, and lots of bars just depend on regulars, and many regulars are on leave / vacation as we hit the end of summer. Anyway, Victor was a great place, the cocktails impeccably crafted, and you get a quite lovely broth soup as part of your cover fee.
The next step was Music Bar The Apollo, which was my first true music bar (where they have all the vinyls and what not) in a while, with the odd twist here being they don't really do cocktails, but have a great whisky selection and a really nice sake collection. I opted for sake, whic were all from Kyushu, which I've come to learn is something of a sake hotbed. It was a great way to end teh night, liking the music and the crowd there enough to not venture out anywhere else. Granted, I didn't really have anything else on my list of places I earmarked heading into my time here. Overall, it was a more lowkey night to end what has probably been the one stop that has gone off as close to plan as possible, in a city that has been the surprise of the trip. Kumamoto has a lot to live up to close my mini tour of Kyushu.
