As Nagasaki´s history everybody knows but walking at the spot feels weird.

The city is easely reachable with the Kyushu express train.

It is a very modern train and seats are comfortable.

The station has also some trolleys driving trough the small city.

The China town is also small but have some nice shops and near there got a Dutch sloop.

The city have maked memorials near the ground and shows many facts about what happend,why and how.

Huis ten Bosch or Oranda mura is near Nagasaki and is a replicate of Dutch Famous building and flower fields.

They make a beautifull lines of Tulip fields and make from Amsterdam Central(train)station an Ana Nikko hotel.

You can eat pancake but the most important thing to put on it is Maple syrup and that they not got.

They make the city centre of Leiden and it look quite nice and also have Dom toren,Utrecht.

Huis ten Bosch and Léurope hotel,Amsterdam.

The view from Dom tower is very clear and can see the grachten very clean(in Netherlands dirty)and a small harbor with an old sailing boat.

If you never went or have the chance to go there then this park give a good impression and have some Dutch sweets and candies and Meals if you like.

If you are on a small budget the it is better not to come here.

For both Akiko and me this was a very much looked forward part fo the trip.  For me I wanted to see the historical parts of this city.  Akiko was going to meet a long time friend who she had not seen for a very long time.  Her friend had just got back from living in Iran so she would have many stories to share with Akiko.

Nagaski is a city that has left a huge imprint on me.  Rarely do I visit a city and say to myself not only could I live here but it is a beautiful as my home.  During my travels I come across many beautiful cities but for some reason I can rarely see myself living there.  I also visit great cities but just think it sure is not as nice as Vancouver.  Nagasaki felt so comfortable for me.

Nagasaki has some of the most western history to it then any other Japanese city. When most of Japan was cut off from the world by the Emperor Nagasaki was still allowed to trade with England, mostly in tea.  Of course many of us know it because it was also bombed with an A bomb by the Americans near the end of World War 2.  I also learned that hundreds of Christians were killed by the local government during a time when Westerns were not welcome in the Japan Empire.

On the plus side the views from the hillsides in Nagasaki are awesome.  The harbor is similar to Vancouver's in that it is narrow and you can easily stand on one side and see the other side.  The big difference though is while Vancouver has been able to keep large sections of the harbor free of development that is not the case with Nagasaki as most of it is built up with warehouses and ship yards.

Another plus in Nagasaki is it multi culture neighborhoods.  There is a fairly large and active Chinatown and you can easily find decent Western food.  We ate at a nice Russia restaurant not far from the JR station.

As soon as we arrived in Nagaski we were met by Akiko friend.  She had already bought some more tickets that would take us to the her families neighborhood.  The family it turns out lives in area that has a lot of Mitsubishi employees.  Akiko's friend's father is a engineer within the company and must do quite well financially.  The home we stayed in would be decent size home here in Canada and I would hate to to know what it costs in a large Japanese city like Nagasaki.  The house was even on a good size piece of land with some large trees. 

At dinner time I got experience food delivery Japan style.  Everything looked normal when the mother phoned the restaurant and ordered food for all of us.  About 45 minutes later the bell at the door rang and this is when things got different.  A gentleman entered wearing white gloves and carrying what looked like a wicker basket.  Inside were metal pots and nice dishes.  He placed them all on the table and after being paid left.  Food delivery in Japan includes real dishes!  After dinner you are expected to wash all the dishes and phone the restaurant and they will come and get them that night or the next day.  I can not imagine this type of service working in Canada.  Nobody would return the dishes forget about clean them.

The next day the father insisted on taking us to the A bomb museum himself.  This man loved his city and you could tell but he wanted to show us everything not just the happy parts.  As you have likely read before the Japanese have left the area where the A bomb hit virtually alone.  There are a few signs explaining what was there before the bomb but much of the area looks like it would have a few days after the bombing.  Of course it is clean and more organized but the buildings around there still looked wrecked.  After you look around you walk up some stairs and go into one of the saddest museums you will ever see.  After 1 hour in there most people have seen enough and it is time to go find something more cheerful.

We then headed to a nice park called Glover Gardens.  During the time that Japan self isolated it self from the rest of the world this was one of the few places Westerns could do business and live.  The Glovers made a small fortune trading in tea and their old home is the location of the gardens.  There are a couple more large European styel homes in the park but the Glover gives the best view of Nagasaki.  You can stand on the old front porch of the home and look over the Nagasaki harbor and skyline.  Again this reminded me of standing on the mountians overlooking my home.  It was wonderful.

Definitely a city worth seeing.  Visit the peace park, the WW2 peace museum, the epic center (where the bomb center of the bomb was), an old church, spectacle bridge, and several old temples.  Take a 100Yen trolley ride around the city.

"Let's catch a bus"

"OK"

With that, my friend Jon and I walked a couple of blocks to a major street in Sasebo hoping to hail a cab. We figured that if we could get a cab to stop we would be able to ask, more or less, where the bus station was. How wrong we were. There was absolutely no way we were understanding each other, much less understanding directions. Finally, after pointing to a picture of a bus on a pamphlet I was holding, the cab driver understood and drove us to a reddish building on a busy street. We said thank you and went in.

We had cash money and we were looking for a bus ticket. Easy right? Well, when we walked in we were greeted by a large board (the blog picture) that we couldn't figure out. We went to one of the windows and like idiots, repeated "Nagasaki", in different tones to the confused woman behind the glass. After a while, I think either Jon or myself must've hit just the right inflection because her eyes perked up. She came outside, grabbed our money out of our hands and inserted it into a machine, similar to what we use here for our MetroRail or London's Underground. Two tickets printed out She handed them to us along with some change, smiled and left. So there we stood. Quietly wondering what happened and trying not to stick out more than we had to. Before we could decide what to do next, a short, elderly man with white gloves rushed up to us, held us by the hand and led us to a bus full of people. We had to be back in Sasebo by midnight and we weren't even sure if this bus was going to the right place. But it seemed like too good of an opportunity. It was an easy bus ride.

Hours later, the bus stops and we are let off. I was thinking that maybe since we had boarded at a  bus station that we were going to be let off at a bus station. This changed when we were dropped off at a busy intersection somewhere in what we learned was Nagasaki. How would we get back? There was no time to think about that then. We had to explore now, and worry about that later. First thing first, we wanted to get around the area where the A Bomb was dropped but had no idea how. Asking people became an awkward ordeal. Most people avoided us, even as we asked in gentle tones. Those that stopped, didn't know any English. Rightly so I suppose, I mean, I didn't know any Japanese! So what would transpire would be us making a confused lost motion (looking around lost), a Looney Tunes bomb drop whistle, and then our hands would make the shape of a mushroom cloud as we made a rumble. Not many people stood long enough to hear the rumble and I don't blame them. We stopped when we started to get weary looks. I wasn't threatening them! I just wanted to know where the Atomic Bomb Museum was! Across the street a man in a huge bee costume was hosting some kind of pageant to really loud pop music. Interesting.

We were finally able to communicate with someone enough to figure out where to go. We boarded a bus and got off just in time to see the a-bomb memorial park. It had a large statue at the end, that according to the sign was intentionally invoking both the images of Jesus and Buddha to represent peace. On the ground, one could see what is left of the buildings that were there before the blast. On some, you could see the rebarb all heading in one direction, probably from the blast. From there we were able to navigate around the area. We found the museum and were astonished at the pictures of the city after the bombing and the human suffering afterwards. Very sobering. What is truly amazing is seeing how this city was reconstructed and thrives today.

After wandering the neighborhood and also checking out ground zero, we were starting to get pretty hungry. It was already late afternoon and we still hadn't eaten. We walked along looking for something authentic and after a while, with our noses leading the way, we found a small restaurant that from the outside looked like a garden shed. It was fairly empty, so we went ahead and sat down. Up until now, in Sasebo and other restaurants we had seen in Nagasaki, there were pictures next to the food either on a sign outside, on the menu, or most times, both. Here there were no pictures. Just a handwritten menu and a guy behind the counter who we didn't want to disturb more than we had to (he was following Japan's progress in the Summer Olympics). With a drinking motion, he was able to show us the part of the menu that was beverages. I pointed to one and Jon pointed to one. Then Jon and I pointed to random parts of the menu. Then we waited.

After twenty minutes of sipping green beverage from an enormous glass, our food came. Jon received an appetizing plate of what looked to be breaded shrimp and fish. Very nice. What I got was a little different though. It was a plate with 2 kebobs. On the skewer were two fried birds. Everything was intact except the beak. The skewer went through the body of the bird. The neck curved around to bring the head into position for the skewer to go carefully into one eye and out the other. Two birds to a skewer for a total of four. I looked at it. Jon looked at it. Then I realized I was drunk. The green stuff was ALCOHOLIC! Luckily the fact that I was a bit tipsy helped me to eat these birds on a stick. I didn't feel right taking pictures of it as I felt it would be offensive. Later, someone told me it may have been duck. If anyone has an idea, I'm STILL curious to know what it was. All in all, it didn't taste that bad and after dinner, the cook had no problem understanding the word sake.

I left feeling more than buzzed and less than drunk. It was night out and the neon lights were on. There was a plaza that sat above a street and young people sat up there to hang out and play the guitar as traffic drove on underneath them. Large groups. Small groups. All young people sitting together discussing things of what appeard to be great importance, or playing music, sing alongs... I remember in my drunken haze saying that "radiation brought about the premature neon glow hippies and it's fuckin' beautiful". Now, in retrospect, I'm not sure if that statement makes any sense. I'm not really even sure it is a coherent statement. I'm sorry if it offends anybody but to this day that phrase brings back the neon relaxed energy of that plaza that night and I stand by it.

Jon took the lead in getting us back to Sasebo. He found a bus station and organized the booking. All I had to do was wait for the bus and sit down.  I did that pretty well right before passing out in the bus and waking up what seemed like two minutes later in Sasebo.

The last day at sea was a little sad.  We had a lot to do with laundery and of course socializing.  We all thought that this would be the last we would see our new friends.  We had dinner with our friends then went dancing to say good bye to the band.  All week we had been watching the band on the Saphire Princess, Deep Blue. They were great all week so we wanted to say our farewells.

Today we are in Nagasaki.  Unfortunatly it was a short day because of the boat schedule.  Tim and Susie, Lee and Michelle, and Kim and I travelled together today.  We took the street tram to the Ground Zero area and started our tour at the Peace Park.  This park was very pretty and was interesting because many countries have contributed a statue in the name of peace. 

From there we went to the actual museum.  I was really suprised to hear how Japan initially became involved in WWII and of their battles with China and Russia.  They had many artifacts recovered after the bombing and lots of information about the rebuilding of the area.  The museum had an entire area which was showing the number of nuculear weapons in the world and strongly encouraged their destruction. 

We returned to the city are and strolled through some side streets.  Kim and I each purchased some Sake from a liquor store which was a neat experience since we couldn't read the lables and the clerk didn't speak much english.  We asked him if we picked good sake and  he lined up the bottles then pointed at each one saying, "Good...bad"  etc.

Getting on the boat was neat because this was the port where our ship was built.  As we sailed away there were children singing to us and performers playing traditional drums. 

After leaving Nagasaki, we sailed into the Yellow Sea on our way to Xingang, China where we will conclude our cruise.

Today is our last day aboard the ship...which means we are busy relaxing, packing, doing laundry and enjoying some fun before disembarking.

We joined our group of friends for an intense game of Around the World Table Tennis. I think Suzy invented this game while on the ship...it involves all 8 of us getting around the ping pong table, one person lobs the ball over the net and then puts the paddle down and we all rotate, the next person picks up the paddle and hits the ball back and this continues until one of us misses. At that point that person is out and the game continues with a smaller group. It gets very intense at the end when you ar running from one end of the table to another trying to get the paddle and hit the ball in time....and mostly we laugh ourselves silly!

The temperature has dropped dramatically since leaving Nagasaki, which means that laying by the pool and swimming are out. As I was waiting at the bar for a diet coke a German woman approached the bartender and asked him if he could turn off the air conditioner as it was too cold. The bartender patiently explained that the AC was not on, that it was the outside temperature that was cooler. The German woman looked puzzled and then asked the bartender to turn up the temperature so she could sit by the pool. As she walked away the bartender looked at me and said, "I bet you didn't realize that I had a switch to control the weather back here did you?" It was hilarious!

Brian and I have enjoyed our time on the ship...but we have also been constantly puzzled by the actions of other passengers. People are strange and when you get 2000 people from 38 different countries together in one place people seem to be even stranger! :)

Tomorrow we land in Xingang, where our ride will meet us to drive us into Beijing. Our friends will also be in Beijing and we are making plans to get together while we are there!

Our primary goal in Nagasaki was to see the Atomic Bomb museum and ground zero. We had no idea that Nagasaki was so beautiful! It was a warm day and Nagasaki sits on a beautiful harbor surrounded by hills covered with trees and bright blue sky overhead. The entry to the harbor is spanned by a suspension bridge similar to the Golden Gate Bridge...it is stunning!

Nagasaki has street cars, so we jumped aboard and headed for the museum. It was a powerful and emotional experience, it affected all of us a great deal. Every single person in the world should visit this site.

The museum is next to the Peace Park which sits atop a hill just next to the epicenter of the bombing. Nagasaki requested peace statues and memorials from all of the cities in the world and many cities and countries donated artistic sculptures and statues that have been placed in this park. It is beautiful to see the contributions of the entire world. The main peace statute was created by the city of Nagasaki and sits in the center of the park. Alongside the statue are long strings of paper cranes that were made by school children and strung together. There are thousands and thousands of the paper cranes, again representing peace and they are beautiful.

After wandering around the park we went to the museum itself. The people of Nagasaki have done a great job with the museum and I felt that their historical facts and coverage of the events leading up to the bombing was very balanced and matter of fact. The toll of the atomic bomb was incalculable, 73,000 people killed instantly, 74,000 seriously wounded, the entire city was leveled. Some of the most powerful photos in the exhibit are those that show the shadow effect. In one a ladder was leaning against a building at the time of the blast. The ladder was incinerated at such heat that it left a shadow on the wall. The ladder is gone and only a black shadow remains. The last section of the museum contains an exhibit of the efforts of Nagasaki and the Japanese people to stop the proliferation of nuclear bombs. It is a life mission for them and it should be for all of us.

As we left the museum our Aussie friends wanted to know more about the war and the events leading up to the bombing and we talked at length about the war. It was an emotional day and it left us all feeling like we should pray every single day for peace.

After leaving the museum we went to the Chinatown section of Nagasaki and walked through the market. After our bargains in Shanghai we did not find the prices very attractive. We found a restaurant for some lunch....and ate Chinese food in Japan. The meal was ok, much more expensive than China, and not as delicious.

We wandered around Nagasaki for several more hours and enjoyed the groups of school kids yelling out "Hello" to us as they passed, when we said "Hello" back they would all giggle and giggle.

Brian and I agreed that Nagasaki is a place we would return to, it is beautiful and we barely scratched the surface.

We have only one more day at sea and then we leave the ship for 4 days in Beijing!