Jan Visits Nagasaki


Nagasaki is a surprisingly beautiful city. While it is true that the architecture is not that different from most other Japanese cities (i.e. mainly concrete and random buildings), the location of the city is fantastic. According to "The Rough Guide", which I am using while in the city, the British landscape painter Sir Alfred East once stated that "As the passage into the harbor widened we had our first glimpse of Nagasaki town in the haze of the morning, nestled in a most beautiful inlet at the food of wooded hills".	In the above picture I am standing at the ground level of the center of the atomic bombing. Yesterday was of course a regular working day in Japan, though I am aware that the US spent most of the day barbecuing and celebrating its independence day. In the evening, Yuka and I took a JAL flight from Tokyo's Haneda Airport to Nagasaki, and from Nagasaki Airport there is a 40 minutes bus trip to the centre of the town.

We started by visiting the Atomic Bomb Museum, which was gruesome but provided little insight into why Nagasaki was chosen as a target. In addition, Japan's role during the war was not really discussed at all. While this can be viewed as an attempt to ignore Japan's role during the war, which again helps victimize Japan as it is the only country in the world to have suffered a nuclear bombing, on the other hand not politicizing the atomic bombing helps bring focus to the actual human disaster of the bombing.	Kitamura Seibo's muscular "Peace Statue", which is located in Peace Park. It really looks like something they could have created in the Soviet Union. It is certainly possible (and likely probable) that human lives were saved through bombing Nagasaki (as an invasion of Japan was thus avoided), still the effect of the nuclear bombing was unprecedented and will hopefully never be experienced again. Today's visit to the Atomic Bomb Museum makes me fear what would happen if a nuclear bomb were to fall into the hands of someone without any sense of reason, thus it is to be hoped that Iran never gains possession of a nuclear weapon.

I was interested to read that Nagasaki only was the secondary target on the day of the bombing. The city of Kokura was the primary target, but it was saved as the city was covered by a cloud cover that obscured the city, thus prohibiting the visual attack required by orders. In other words, there were some very lucky people living in Kokura on August 9, 1945, and there were some very unlucky ones living in Nagasaki.	The Urakami Cathedral. While the Atomic Bomb Museum probably is the most memorable sight in Nagasaki, I also enjoyed visiting a couple of churches.