Saturday, July 05, 2008
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 harbour 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".
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 Haneda to Nagasaki, and from Nagasaki Airport there is a 40 minutes bus trip to the centre of the town.
Today, I think we have seen most of the major sights in the city. 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 politicising the atomic bombing helps bring focus to the actual human disaster of the bombing. 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.
While the Atomic Bomb Museum probably is the most memorable sight in Nagasaki, I also enjoyed visiting a couple of churches. The Urakami Cathedral is located close to the Atomic Bomb Museum, and it is still possible to view certain sections and statues that were damaged during the nuclear explosion. Equally or even more impressive is the Oura Catholic Church, which is beautifully located in a different part of town. This was apparently the first church built in Japan, and the location could hardly be more magnificent. Nearby is the Glover Garden, which exhibits a wide range of old Western houses. Nagasaki was Japan's first truly cosmopolitan city, and in particular I enjoyed reading about the Scotsman Thomas Glover and also to visit his residence.
Yuka and I ended the evening by eating a fantastic shippoku meal at Nagasaki's oldest ryokan; Sakamotoya. While it set us back a couple of hundred bucks, it certainly was worth the experience. As part of the meal was a large portion of raw whale meat, which was a bit too much as I already had some unexpected whale sushi yesterday evening (no kidding!).
While I enjoy whale meat when properly cooked, raw whale meat is rather chewy and not to be recommended. After the rather extravagant dinner, we took a cable car up to see the panorama offered by Inasa-yama, before ending the evening with a couple of cocktails at the New York Diner on the 15th floor of the Best Western Premier.
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 harbour 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".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 Haneda to Nagasaki, and from Nagasaki Airport there is a 40 minutes bus trip to the centre of the town.
Today, I think we have seen most of the major sights in the city. 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 politicising the atomic bombing helps bring focus to the actual human disaster of the bombing. 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.
While the Atomic Bomb Museum probably is the most memorable sight in Nagasaki, I also enjoyed visiting a couple of churches. The Urakami Cathedral is located close to the Atomic Bomb Museum, and it is still possible to view certain sections and statues that were damaged during the nuclear explosion. Equally or even more impressive is the Oura Catholic Church, which is beautifully located in a different part of town. This was apparently the first church built in Japan, and the location could hardly be more magnificent. Nearby is the Glover Garden, which exhibits a wide range of old Western houses. Nagasaki was Japan's first truly cosmopolitan city, and in particular I enjoyed reading about the Scotsman Thomas Glover and also to visit his residence.
Yuka and I ended the evening by eating a fantastic shippoku meal at Nagasaki's oldest ryokan; Sakamotoya. While it set us back a couple of hundred bucks, it certainly was worth the experience. As part of the meal was a large portion of raw whale meat, which was a bit too much as I already had some unexpected whale sushi yesterday evening (no kidding!).
While I enjoy whale meat when properly cooked, raw whale meat is rather chewy and not to be recommended. After the rather extravagant dinner, we took a cable car up to see the panorama offered by Inasa-yama, before ending the evening with a couple of cocktails at the New York Diner on the 15th floor of the Best Western Premier.
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