Day 16 Sat, 17th Oct, In Port of Nagasaki Japan, Reflecting, Respecting, Learning and Enjoying

 Another day and a new port, this time it was the large Japanese city of Nagasaki. We had booked into a long excursion for the day, while Trudy and Rob chosen a shorter one.  An early departure time for the excursion and the fact that we had to clear immigration because we were entering back into Japan meant we had to set the alarm for 5.30am. Nagasaki is a very large port city, well known now for it’s ship building capabilities. The housing is very dense with many high-rise units and tall buildings in the city and all around the nearby hills and mountains. It actually looked a bit like Busan. Our excursion took us to first to Ground Zero, Peace Park, a park similar to Peace Park in Hiroshima. The park had the remnants of foundations that had once been buildings, standing in the area, as well as beautiful, statues and sculptures sent from countries all over the world to the people of Nagasaki, to inspire peace. From here we drove to the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum, which was opened in 1996 as part of the 50^th anniversary. The museum was spacious and housed many artifacts from the bombing as well as a number of photos. Again, it was very confronting but something the world cannot ignore. Although there were quite a number of tourist busses from the ship, visiting the museum, it was very large and spacious and we certainly were able to view exhibits easily and move around with out any issues, unlike the museum at Peace Park in Hiroshima. We were then taken to a fascinating man-made island called Dejima. It was built back in 1636, initially to confine the Portuguese and Spanish. This was the start of the time when the Japanese wanted to remove all foreigners due to the spread and threat Christianity posed. The island became a prison first and then a Dutch trading post as the Japanese still wanted to trade with the Dutch for essentials. When Japan opened its borders once again in 1859, land around the island was reclaimed and new buildings sprung up around the island. Today the people of Nagasaki have restored the buildings which were once on the island and so we were able to walk around and in and out of the buildings, read stories about the people who lived and worked here and the way trade was conducted during those years from 1636 to 1859. I, of course, was in my element! Following this enjoyable activity, we were taken to the Plaza Hotel for a delicious traditional Japanese lunch. The next part of our excursion was to be done on foot and as it was quite warm, at least half of the group nominated to return to the ship, so that left a nice little group to tour the nearby Glover Garden. A short but steep walk away from the hotel were the gardens. Our guide said that the gardens were beautiful, but the area was actually a museum, showcasing “western style” housing from the 1860’s onwards. There were many period homes built in this area and we enjoyed exploring them. Many of the people who lived in these homes came to Nagasaki to start new industries when Japan opened up to the rest of the world. I did have a little chuckle when our guide looked in on one of the large dining rooms of one of the homes and said these rooms are just “too big”. We had to walk up quite a few steps to visit the homes but every now and then there would be an escalator to help us along. We had great views from the top of the Garden and could see our ship which was moored only a short distance away. The return walk to the ship was very easy as it was all downhill!