Nagasaki Day 3, Kyushu Day 6

Our last day in Nagasaki and the hottest day yet. It was a real scorcher and we could feel ourselves burn with every step we went. Considering every other day of the holiday had veered wildly between muggy and humid and torrential rain it was at least nice to know we wouldn’t be rained on.

Hot, dusty and sweaty we went for a walk and decided to tour the Peace Park, a series of monuments dedicated to peace and in memory of the damage the atomic bomb did to the city.

Now I haven’t mentioned the atomic bombing of Nagasaki much in my write up of this trip and that’s because it nowhere near pervades the feeling of the city as much as it does in Hiroshima. Hiroshima was practically wiped out; the city centre was just gone in an instant destroying much of the historical character of the city along with many lives. In rebuilding it Hiroshima developed a feeling that is almost unique in Japan, very modern and almost European with wide roads and street cafes.

Nagasaki suffered a lot of damage too and almost as much loss of life but the area affected was not the city centre because, well because it doesn’t really have one. There is the port and the train station but beyond that everything is built up the side of a mountain. Nagasaki is more a city of small distinct areas almost falling into the sea.

Consequently much of the old historical areas are intact, the old Dutch settlement, the Chinatown, many of the temples, Glover Garden. Different parts of Nagasaki are like different windows into history. Wandering through the city is like time travelling through some corridor; behind every door a different century and a new story.

But whilst the city has minimised the impact of the bomb to some extent it did still leave a big gash in the place and in its place they have erected a park.

The park is frankly not very nice and not a patch on the one in Hiroshima. It is too wide, flat and featureless with few trees, few flower beds and little to break up the vista (or offer protection from a scorching sun).

What it does have is a series of statues donated by various countries from around the world and all on the theme of peace.

Being themed around peace this consequently meant that there were quite a lot of women, babies and women holding babies upwards in gestures of hope and new life. Some of these were quite well done but there are only so many variations on the theme of women holding babies that I can look at before your eyes want to leap out your head and go do something less boring.

There were a few oddball ones though like this abstract piece that represents the destruction of the city.

This piece demonstrates the 7 continents as people interconnected. I like this a lot, I like symbolic art and this has some wonderful symbolism to it as well as well constructed human figures.

This work, riffing on the idea of the human shadows left behind in the bomb blast, was especially good.

Brazil didn’t seem to get what the theme of the park was.

“Hey we need to submit a sculpture suggesting peace”

“How about a bird?”

“Fantastic but how will they know we have sent them it?”

“The bird will be standing on a massive stone map of Brazil”

“I love it! Nothing says peace like a giant stone map of Brazil”

“And a bird”

“Oh yes right, the bird”

This is the Dutch entry. No idea, do you have any ideas? Because I have no idea.

The centrepiece of the whole park was this enormous and highly symbolic statue. Apparently his left arm is pointing to where the bomb blast occurred whilst his right is gesturing upwards wishing for peace. He is powerful to help the needy but has a kind face. He is sitting relaxed and comfortable but with a leg on the floor ready to spring into action. And he’s massive and blue and frankly doesn’t appear to have been sculpted very well. Now I certainly can’t sculpt for toffee and don’t claim to be an expert on sculpture but something about that face just seems terribly off to me. There’s something not right about it; right? It’s not just me is it?

and he reminds me of Dr. Manhattan, which is not apprpriate for a statue in the Peace Park.

We didn’t go to the Atomic Bomb Museum as we figured it would be more of the same that we saw in Hiroshima but we did go to the hut and accompanying museum of Dr. Nagai Takashi.

Nagai Takashi was a scientist and doctor researching the effects of radiation on the human body, particularly with regards to leukaemia. In this capacity he took part in important medical research that ultimately would help save many lives. In his capacity as a regular surgeon during the war he directly saved the lives of many wounded Japanese soldiers and civilians alike.

In a cruelly ironic twist Dr. Nagai eventually contracted leukaemia, a known risk for someone in his line of work as he necessarily exposed himself to radiation on a daily basis. He was diagnosed in 1945 aged 37 just a few short months before the bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. Both Nagai and his wife were deeply committed Christians and though they sought comfort in God this was obviously difficult for both of them. Nagai began to face up to the fact that he was dying and his wife prepared herself to raise their children alone and live a life without her husband.

When the bomb was dropped Nagai was working in a University hospital. Despite suffering an injury from broken glass that severed his temporal artery he stayed behind to assist and help deal with the flood of patients seeking treatment there.

That evening he returned to the ruins of his house to find most of it burnt to the ground. Of his wife all that remained were ashes and a twisted and melted rosary. Having steeled himself for his own death the time he had remaining with his wife was also cruelly snatched away from him.

Although now having every right to sink into bitterness and despair Nagai continued to work with patients until he himself was eventually bedridden later that year. Initially he stayed in a small hut he had built from the remains of his house, along with his two children, mother in law and two other relatives.

Although bedridden, Nagai continued teaching and began to write. This writing was prolific and often profound musing upon god, war, sickness and death but always returning to a message of hope and optimism. Often he contemplated the future that lay ahead for his children with a mixture of sadness but always with a positive feeling that after the brutality of the Second World War peace was surely not far. Nagai wrote around 15 books and all were bestsellers in Japan earning Nagai enough money to see for his children’s future. However much of his earnings were donated to local charities and once famously to plant cherry trees where they had been destroyed by the bomb.

This synbolic act, bringing beauty and serenity back to a city that had known horrible destruction speaks more about the character of Nagai than any other to me.

Nagai used very little money from his earnings at all to improve his own circumstances. Indeed when a Christian charity offered to build him a new house he asked for them to build a slight extension for the 6 tatami hut he was living in for his brother’s family and to be moved into a new hut that was merely 2 tatami in size. To put that in some perspective lie down. His hut was approaximately as long as you are now lying down and maybe 2 or 3 times wider.

This hut, which he styled Nyoko-do (based on the Japanese translation of Jesus’ expression “love your neighbour as yourself”) was where he lived the rest of his days until he died in 1951.

And this is that hut.

It is one of the most profoundly, sad, humble and inspiring images I have ever seen. I freely admit to crying as I walked round the museum and thinking about Nagai’s story again as I write this I find myself almost crying now.

The Peace Park and Nyoko-do lie a short distance away from the actual epicentre of the blast which, oddly, was above a Christian cathedral. The epicentre has been marked by this monolith which looks vaguely like something out of 2001 a space odyssey. I will admit to humming “Thus Spoke Zarathrusta” and pretending to be a monkey as we walked past it.

The remains of the cathedral can also be viewed along with this statue of a suspiciously Japanese looking Jesus.

Our final atomic bomb themed point of interest is the famous “one legged torii”. Torii are arched gates at the entrance to Japanese temples and shrines. As well as being a handsome architectural feature they are also spiritually important and signify entry into the purified place of the shrine.
This gate had one of its legs knocked down by the atomic blast leaving the other standing. Read whatever values into that symbol that you choose. Is it Japan defiantly standing up to the bomb? Is it peace and purity conquering war? Or did the blast just come from that way? Either way it was cool looking so I took a photo.

Right, enough sadness and bombs now. Fran and I were horribly depressed, hot, tired and sweaty. However we still had one sight left to see, the Confucian Shrine.

Before we got there though we had to ride a tram, along with 3 German tourists. 2 of them were perfectly fine backpacker types if a bit old and flabby for your average back packer. However the third was one of the most enormous men I have ever seen in my entire life. And I have been to Florida. He was obscenely huge, like a cartoon fat man. I expected oom pam pah music to follow him everywhere he went. He literally took up two seats on the tram, and not a little spilling either. Each cheek got one seat with a little bit extra at that meaning he probably took up 4 spaces in total. And you know how I mentioned that it was hot, and sweaty? Well he was obviously having a difficult time of it because he stank to high heaven. And he had a rubbish ginger neck beard. Watching the impassive faces of the Japanese struggle not to curl into grimaces of horror would have been hilarious had I not been suffocating on the stench of fat German too.

Ugh, horrible.

Anyway.

Confucian Shrine.

We all know who Confucius is right? Well short version, Chinese philosopher who developed a world view that prized hierarchy, patriarchy and the pursuit of self improvement through becoming a rounded person and seeking excellence in everything one does. He basically influenced all Chinese aesthetic, political, moral, social and cultural thought for, well until Mao showed up really. And since Japan just nicked all their culture from China (with the greatest possible respect for Japan whilst that was a facetious exaggeration there is some truth to it) he influenced Japanese culture too.

Yet nobody in Japan has heard of him it seems, at least judging by my students and the teachers I work with.

So great was Confucius’ influence and in such respect was he held that a whole religion sprang up around him, Confucianism. Well I say religion, it’s more of a moral philosophy and lacking in the metaphysics one would expect from a religion. But then of course some bright spark married the moral philosophy of Confucianism with the metaphysics of Buddhism (which at its core is all metaphysics and no morals) and hey presto we have Buddhism as it is practiced over much of East Asia.

So Confucianism has shrines to Confucius and their basically the same as Buddhist temples or Japanese shrines to Kami since they were copying the Confucian ones. Except the Confucian ones are just so much more incredible.

Admittedly I have only seen one but if it’s anything to go by then Confucian Shrines everywhere must be absolutely spectacular. Not an inch of this place wasn’t covered in some kind of ornate carving. Ceilings, floors, doors, bars, the gate around a flower bed, the edges of tiles, pillars, beams literally everything had some kind of magnificent carving.

And the colours! The colours were everywhere, incredibly vibrant and of a vast array of hues. The shrine looks like the kind of palace a 5 year old kid dreams about, all flash and sensation everywhere.

It was visually overwhelming. Everywhere you looked there was something new to see, some animal or painting or statue.

It was absolutely amazing, I was rendered literally speechless.

The most interesting feature for me were the human statues that surrounded the main shrine of Confucius. Apparently these are also shrines. Within the main building are Confucius and the 12 primary philosophers of Confucianism. Outside the building are statues of Confucius’ students, all who possess different skills and abilities a man must strive in to make the world a better place.

Interestingly the land that the shrine was built on is not actually Japan. Technically it is owned by the Chinese embassy and so we had taken a little mini trip to China. Historically this is because the shrine was built in front of a Confucian school (as all Confucian shrines were) teaching the children of Chinese expats. The school has long since been moved but the arrangement still stands and this is Chinese soil.

The shrine is the only one built to proper standards in Japan (although technically, I guess it isn’t since it’s in China). There are a few others but none are said to be as impressive as this one.

Nowadays the school has become a museum which had many wonderfully decorated china pots I was forbidden to take photos of. There was also some video called “China in space” which sounded a bit scary but turned out to be some kind of travelogue thing that was intensely dull.

Confucian shrine all finished with we swung by our hotel, grabbed our bags and made for the bus and our final stop, Fukuoka.

We arrived there late at night and made for a very cheap and very lovely hotel the Hotel New Simple. It was a bit of a bugger to find though even if it was close to the station.

Exhausted, hot and hungry we made out to do the main thing I had come to Fukuoka for.

Eat Ramen!

Fukuoka, as any Japanese person will tell you, is very famous for Ramen. Ramen, for the uninitiated, is thin Chinese noodles in a soup or broth with some meat or vegetables added to it.

It may not sound like much but it is a magical food. Indeed it may be my favourite food in the world. Perfectly filling, amazingly tasty, a breadth of textures, quick and above all dirt cheap. There are tastier foods but no food is as simply perfect as ramen. I love it and I eat it every chance that I get. Indeed if it is offered to me no matter how hungry I am or am not I feel compelled to eat it.

Fukuoka is famous for its own particular variety of ramen, tonkotsu ramen, which is made from pork bones and is white. Eager to try this delectable delicacy we willed our tiring limbs over to Fukuoka’s main attraction, Canal City, a massive shopping centre and onto the floor they call…

Ramen Stadium.

A whole floor containing nothing but ramen restaurants.

Truly if heaven is a place on earth, this is it.

And how was my ramen? Why it was salty, creamy, thick, spicy, gooey, warm, delicious and utterly sublime thank you for asking.

Full and profoundly satisfied we left Ramen Stadium and had a wander around the
shopping centre.

Canal City is a pretty cool place. The layout is very innovative with a river running through the middle of it and a sort of a three-dimensional amphitheatre in the middle i.e. rather than an ever expanding bowl it was a sphere of balconies overlooking a stage. There was also a regularly timed musical fountain display and this thing.

A curtain of water using a computer and some hoses to create shapes in mid air. This was mesmerising and we sat watching it, and digesting ramen, for a good 20 minutes until we were sure we had seen every display.

At which point it began to rain. And it was so sunny in Nagasaki too.

Yeah, it rained quite a lot. At first we tried to shelter it out but it was quickly apparent that it wasn’t going to let up fast. Having learned our lesson in Nagasaki we did not try and walk back the way we came but hailed a cab and were soon in bed happily sleeping and dreaming of more Ramen.

Fukuoka Day 2, Kyushu Day 7

We got up bright and early and took a train out of Fukuoka to the nearby village of Kyudai Gakuentoshi, which was a little odd as I live in Gakuentoshi in Kobe. We were looking forward to visiting a restored folk village and witnessing some traditional crafts. I shall quite from Lonely Planet Japan 2008 .

This history theme village gathers over 30 working potters, weavers and paper
makers, plus a souvenir shop to sell their wares.

Sounds nice, doesn’t it?
Well turns out it has been shut for two years.

We arrived at the station, went outside, realised we had no idea where we were or where the village was, went back inside for a sign or a brochure or something and eventually asked the man in the ticket gates if he knew how to get there. At which point he puts up a hand written sign in English that says the place has been shut for two years.

I suspect he got asked the question a lot and had a friend help him write it because otherwise he spoke no English.

I was not best pleased Lonely Planet!

Ah but here is that recurring theme of Kyushu, nice old people. The guy in the ticket booth felt bad that we had come all this way only to go home again so he offered to call his friend to take us up to go look at the village anyway even if it was closed. And by offered I mean kind of insisted in a manner that made it impossible to refuse even though I didn’t especially want to go.

So before we knew it we were soon whisked away in a stranger’s car to go bouncing up a mountain to a mysterious village.

It turns out that since closing down the history theme village has been bought by a load of antique merchants. The restored buildings are still there (and they’re very lovely) but now they are all full of old junk mixed in with a few genuinely gorgeous antiques.

There was also going to be an auction that afternoon but we couldn’t stay to watch it because there are no public auctions in Japan, you have to be invited. This was news to me and after I expressed my surprise the man who told me proceeded to give me a history lesson which I did not understand a word of.

The village and many of the wares were properly strange and the whole place had a faintly creepy vibe to it. It didn’t help that we were the only people there not running a shop and that the old fashioned style of the buildings made it feel vaguely like some kind of ghost story.

Ah yes, and the first thing we saw when we got there was a horrifying dummy of a man with a face that is pure nightmare fuel.

Amongst the stranger things we saw were;

This unidentified animal head (we couldn’t decide if it was wolf or pig).

A tanuki made of straw.

The most racist statue I have ever seen.

As the creepiness grew and grew and was soon only matched by our boredom we decided to leave and after a short but terrifying search for our ride (we couldn’t find him and feared we were stranded) we got back to civilisation in one piece.

Next stop Hawks Town, another shopping centre but one with a giant indoor jungle.

Ah, or not, turns out that place is shut too. Lonely Planet was getting on my nerves by this stage. Still we did some shopping and had more ramen (it was delicious, as ramen always is) before going back to Canal City. For more shopping, and a beer.

And that was it really. Fukuoaka in summary, everything interesting is shut but they have a very nice shopping centre.

And that, bar a train ride home, was our vacation.

Overall Kyushu was easily the best trip I have done in Japan. With the possible exception of Fukuoaka everything about it just clicked. From the lovely relaxing onsen in Beppu to the fantastic food in Fukuoka to the quirky temples of Nagasaki, everything was exactly what we expected and often surpassed those expectations. Nothing disappointed and often things surprised us, like the quirky café in Nagasaki or the taxi driver leading us to the private onsen in Beppu.

What will stay with me about Kyushu most of all though is how friendly everyone was to us. I have never been treated so nicely by perfect strangers in my life. Whether it was giving of their time and expertise or giving us a free cab ride people put themselves out for us for no reward. It was humbling but very much appreciated. I don’t think Fran and I will ever forget it.

Nagasaki Day 2, Kyushu Day 5

Our day was started bright and early with a failed trip to find a famous coffee house. Which made me sad.

That failure aside though we set off towards teramachi or temple row to look at, what else, temples.

We started with a temple whose name I absolutely do not know. I didn’t note it down and it isn’t my guidebook so…whoops. But I do know that it is on teramachi and it is bright red and done in a largely Chinese style.

It also had a nice Chinese lady inside who was making beads and who seemed rather disappointed at the poor turnout. She explained that the temple doesn’t usually get a lot of foreign visitors but mostly Japanese and Chinese ones. When I suggested that the poor turn out was probably because the Japanese were all spending time with their families for Obon she told me the opposite was true. Usually Obon was their busiest time of year as families are supposed to visit shrines together. This was quite sad news for me. I have been hearing stories for years about how the Buddhist temples are struggling to keep their income high enough to maintain the temples. Although the big and famous places draw a lot of attention from tourists, if perfectly pleasant but small temples like this one are in danger of closing that is a real shame.

Continuing the theme of the trip our old lady was only too happy to show us around the temple and explain some of the features to us. The most striking of these was a male and female dolphin fish pictured above (male) and below (female). I see male dolphin fish very often in Japanese architecture but this is the first time I have ever seen a female version. Apparently the ball in the mouth of the male represents male desire whilst the female is supposed to bring fertility and easy pregnancy. Both examples shown here are actually drums used in ceremonies at the temple.

Can I just point out how weird it is that every source translates this animal’s name as a dolphin fish? It shares not one characteristic with a dolphin at all. Dolphins have no scales, their tails are horizontal not vertical, they have different heads and bodies and the dolphin fish lacks a dorsal fin. At least the female version looks a little bit like a malformed whale but the male one looks like nothing so much as a dragon fish. What on earth it has to do with dolphins I will never understand.

By far the finest feature of this particular temple was its lovely gardens a few pictures of which are shown here.

Moving on from our mystery temple we moved onto a separate street to have a look at the famous “Meganebashi” or “Spectacles Bridge;” so called because the reflections in the water make it look like a pair of glasses. Apparently it is one of the oldest examples of an arched stone bridge in Japan. Sadly it is nowhere near as impressive as that fact sounds.

Here is Fran, pointing at her spectacles on Spectacles Bridge.

Moving back onto teramachi our next location was Sofukji (not to be confused with Shofuku-ji) one of the more spectacular, unusual and famous temples in Nagasaki.

Shofuku-ji was another Chinese temple that adopted the official Japanese form of Buddhism but it still has many examples of its Chinese heritage left behind such as the Ming style gate in spectacular red colours.

The main attraction of this temple is this giant pot in the courtyard. Nagasaki was once ravaged by a great famine that left many of the poor citizenry starving. The head of the temple along with a pioneering female philanthropist (pictured below) collected donations every day to make a gigantic cauldron of porridge that they would distribute to the poor. During one particularly bad winter this food aid was feeding more than a 1000 people a day and helping them stay alive.

Again, with such history and such an important social role it really is a shame that Buddhist temples are beginning to die out in Japan.

One of the things I noticed about the temple which struck me as unusual was the decorative bats that I spotted in a few places. Apparently bats are something of a symbol of good luck in Nagasaki, and nowhere else in Japan, for reasons that were not explained to me.

Our next two temples were Yasakusa and Kiyomizu which aren’t interesting in the slightest except that they bare the names of two much more famous temples in Kyoto which are also close together. This was another theme of travelling in Kyushu. In Kansai it is very rare for a name to be duplicated for two or more places but on the island there were all kinds of places with names we recognized from Kobe, Kyoto or Tokyo.

Lunchtime and we moved off temple row and into a more city like part of the city.

But first a quick stop in Shian-bashi area. Shian-bashi was, and still is to a lesser extent the red light or “pleasure” district of Nagasaki. In former times it was separated from the main city by a bridge. This bridge, known as the bridge of pondering gave its name to the area. Why the bridge of pondering? Well apparently in days of old men would pause for a second on the bridge and debate whether to press on or return to their wives at home. Seized by the spirit of the ages I also decided to ponder for a moment before pressing on in search of food, drink and cake.

Cake! Yes, cake. In fact not just any cake but the infamous Castella at the even more infamous Fukusaya Castella cake shop. Castella is a kind of sweet sponge cake introduced to Japan by the Portuguese. The origins of the name are widely debated but are believe to come from an area of Portugal with the similar sounding name of Castile. However confusingly Castile was then a part of Spain and in Castile they don’t make Castella.

Fukusaya Castella has being making this cake and operating as a shop continuously since 1624! That is an astonishingly long time for any shop to operate, let alone in one location and in the same building (albeit heavily renovated inside). I would be interested to know if anything in the U.K. even comes close but I doubt it. To put that in perspective imagine a Tudor building being used for its original purposes continuously for nearly 400years!

The shop is somewhat small and Spartan inside but that is because it basically consists of a counter and three stools. All of the activity goes on in the bakery itself, all they need the shop for is to sell you their one and only product, cake.

And what a cake it is. Honestly it may be the most perfect cake I have ever eaten. This is the platonic ideal of cake. There is no decoration, no icing or butter or any messing around, it is just pure sponge. But it is the nicest sponge I have ever eaten and I suspect it is impossible to make a sponge cake taste any better. It was moist, fluffy, sweet but not too sweet, with a deliciously complex after taste. It was just perfect. Utterly perfect.

Oh and look, more bats. I wonder what they are all about.

Full of cake and properly rested we decided to climb to Suwa-jinja.

It was a long climb. If nothing else a trip to Nagasaki will help you keep fit as there is simply no way to avoid climbing hundreds and thousands of steps.

Suwa-jinja lacked the cool Chinese influenced architecture of most Nagasaki temples and shrines but made up for it with its own unique attraction. Komainu, or prayer dogs.

These dogs are features of pretty much any Asian temple. They always stand in pairs, one with his mouth closed and the other with his mouth open. One is taking a breath and the other is breathing out but this breathing is in sync, as if they are taking the same breath. This concept of harmony so perfect that one breathes in while the other breathes out is known as “wa” and is a central idea in Japanese culture.

Furthermore one dog is always female whilst the other is male. Usually the male breathes in, an act of life and the female breathes out, an act of death symbolising the cyclical nature of life due to resurrection.

Komainu are descended from Chinese foo dogs or lion dogs which had the same purpose and are also displayed at temples but do not have the associations with wa.

Suwa-jinja is covered in hundreds of these dogs all over the place with radically different artistic styles and designs.

Some of the dogs even have special features such as this one, the kappa komainu.

And barring a failed trip to a temple we eventually got to later on (I’ll tell you all about it tomorrow), a bath and a delicious dinner at an Izakaya that specialised in pork was all we did that day.

Nagasaki Day 1, Kyushu Day 4

Once again apologies for the lack of updates. I have had the busiest two weeks of my entire stay in Japan so far at work and they have just ended. Also this post was a little bit of a mini-epic as you can see. I hope you all enjoy it anyway.

Nagasaki Day 1

The first part of our wonderful stay in Nagasaki involved getting there. Sadly Kyushu is not mainland Japan. There are no lovely super rapids that bisect the island and let you cross from one side to the other in a hour. Instead your options are ride all the way around the edge of the island or take a bus through the middle.

Being both cheaper and quicker bus it was. And it was a really, really nice bus too. Big comfortable seats and a TV screen at the front. Of course the telly was in Japanese but it was playing the weirdly fascinating “20th Century Boys” which one of these days I’m going to have to read/watch.

A slightly odd start to the trip though was this statue of some kind of zombie nurse that I snapped just as we passed by it. Apparently it was advertising some kind of bandage/trauma clinic thing. There is no way in hell you’d be able to get away with displaying that on the street in England; and with good reason. I was freaked out by it and I am hardly squeamish.

Just before lunchtime we pulled into Nagasaki and I got my first impression of the place.

It is hot and it is bloody hilly.

I mean that applies to everywhere in Japan but to Kyushu even moreso. The city seems to consist of a harbour, the area around the main station and then nothing but hills, hills and more hills. And steep ones at that.

Gamely trenching up the first of many hills we emerged, sweating, tired, hot and hungry at our hotel. A traditional Japanese ryokan run by a lovely and enthusiastic little man who spoke not one single word of English. Not even hello.

Divesting ourselves of bags we set off in search of food and stumbled upon this place.

Yes, that is a suit of armour and no; that isn’t even remotely the weirdest thing associated with this café. On the outside it was decorated with suits of armour, masks, fake fruit, statues and Buddhas. On the inside it was festooned with dozens of statues and antique plates, cups, pots and kettles. It was a real Aladdin’s cave, a mix of dozens of different things with no attempt whatsoever to match styles or features. It was in short awesome.

The people running it were even better. The main guy in charge was really friendly and talked to us about all the antiques he’d gathered. How he likes to go out to antique fairs to collect them, etc. He was showing off some bargains, some especially old things he’d grabbed and one or two particularly pricy pieces. A bit all over my head I’m afraid but it was nice to just listen to a man talk about something he was passionate about.

He was also passionate about tea! Something which will serve a man in good standing in my book. Most places here serve basic “kocha” but he had an honest to god tea menu, with different blends, leaves and countries represented. I just plumped for a standard British blend but it was really nice. Easily the best cup of tea I’ve had in Japan that I didn’t make myself.

The rest of his family were all in the café too. At the counter his son or possibly grandson was sat doing his school homework. His wife was doing the cooking and chatting occasionally and she was a marvellous cook (if a touch slow for the café crowd). I had a spicy pork and rice stir-fry that was basic but good. Chinese food is rightly famous in Nagasaki because it absolutely delicious. Not greasy, not slimy, not covered in MSG just tasty and wondrous.

All in all it was the perfect first impression of people in Nagasaki and it was yet another reminder that people in Kyushu are unbelievably friendly.

Full up of spicy ginger stir fry we made our way up the mountain to check out some of the many temples in Nagasaki.

First up was Kanzen-ji, which had a big tree.

Not to disparage the tree, which is pretty damn big, and right smack dab in an urban area to boot. But well, trees can only hold my interest for so long so off we toddled to Shofuku-ji.

Shofuku-ji was really quite lovely, although our enjoyment of it was hampered a bit by rain which suddenly sprang from nowhere and forced us to shelter under the arches of the temple.

Shofuku-ji, like many temples in Nagasaki, displays a mixture of Chinese and Japanese architectural styles. I’m no expert on architecture and I would be hard pressed to explain to you what this means in practise but I have seen enough temples on the main land to know that something about Shofuku-ji was very different to a regular temple. Small touches such as a geometric wooden pattern on the gates or a slightly different style of arched roof might not seem like much but they gave the temple a feeling of novelty that made going to look at temples interesting again.

Yes, after three years in Japan it is possible to become bored of looking at temples. Heck, it took my brother about two days when he visited.

It doesn’t hurt that Shofuku-ji is extremely handsome, with beautifully laid out gardens and wonderful views of the city below. It also had some beautifully detailed gargoyles, including a wall covered in nothing but ogre and gargoyle designs (the onigawara).

However my main memory of Shofuku-ji is of the very nice gentleman who decided to explain the history of the temple to us. I have mentioned in earlier posts that we visited Kyushu during Obon. Traditionally during this time Japanese families go and visit their parents and grandparents and then visit temples and shrines. Obviously this elderly gentleman was out visiting temples with his family. Equally obviously he was bored to tears with them because he decided to abandon them and instead talk to two foreigners. Whilst he explained in Japanese I had no hope at all of understanding about the history of the temple his family watched us suspiciously from some distance. At some point a small child was entrusted to come over and summon Grandad away to stop bothering the poor people. But he was having none of it and continued to regale us with stories and ask questions about England.

Eventually we convinced him to rejoin his family and with a somewhat sad expression he trundled off and we made our way elsewhere. People, especially old people, in Kyushu are awesome.

Next up on our tour was Fukusai-ji Kannon. A temple built, I kid you not, in the shape of a giant turtle with a Buddha standing on its back.

No, seriously, giant turtle. Here are some pictures.

I know I talk about Gamera a lot on this blog* but come on. That thing looks like its about to rear up and fight Godzilla. Maybe the next time America tries to bomb Nagasaki it will.

*Gamera is a giant turtle with tusks that can fly and breathe fire. He is also “a friend to children” which is perfectly logical.

Awesome turtle aside, we were a bit disappointed to find out that the temple was shut. We had a shufty around the outside of it all but we couldn’t find a door that wasn’t locked. Oh well we thought, at least we got to see the giant turtle.
Just as we were leaving, however, an incredibly old, but surprisingly spry woman started sprinting towards us. Turns out she was the caretaker and she was happy to show us around.

So we ended up with our own personal tour of the temple. Since we were the only people there we were treated to some extra special benefits, such as;

Getting to bang the drum used for services.

Posing with the big bell outside that is used to call in the faithful.

Whilst the turtle was fantastic the inside of the temple was full of some really cool touches as well. Our guide took us through many of them demonstrating such things as secret cabinets built into the walls and altars where Chinese residents used to hide things during the war.

Best of all was a massive Foucault’s pendulum underneath the temple. The string reaches right up into the Buddha’s head and is connected to a ball pendulum which measures the rate of rotation of the earth. It is one of the biggest such pendulums in the whole world, only beaten by three others. However I think it may need resetting a little bit as the intervals between the rods falling down were not regular.

Fukusai-ji was followed up by the Ouranda (Holland) Cathedral and the 26 Martyrs Memorial.

Nagasaki is a somewhat unique city in Japan due to the wide mix of different cultures that coexist here. Primarily it is the most Chinese influenced city in Japan but there is also a strong influence of Portuguese and Dutch culture. This is because for a long time Nagasaki was the only port in the country that was open for westerners, principally those from Portugal and the Netherlands, to trade in. The Dutch settled here on the “Dutch slopes” and in a small city within a city which initially represented the only place they were legally free to move around in. With their settlement they brought sunflowers and tulips, coffee, different kinds of cake, tobacco and a whole range of goods.

They also imported Christianity (although actually the first missionaries had arrived sometime earlier), and that’s where the problems began. Buddhism and particularly the Shinto variant practised in Japan places an emphasis on venerating authority figures and paying respect to them. Every man, woman and child in the land was legally obliged to attend Buddhist ceremonies. Through the temples and the shrines the Shogunate extended quite a lot of their power. Anything that was a threat to this order would have to be controlled and Christianity presented a definite threat.

So it was then that Christianity became illegal in Japan. This ban didn’t apply to the foreigners who lived and traded in Nagasaki but it did apply to the Japanese residents of the city. However due to their contact with the Dutch, Portuguese and Spanish many Japanese residents began to convert to Christianity.

So it was that on February 5th 1597 Toyotomi Hideoyshi executed 26 Christian priests, 2 of them children, 20 of them Japanese, 4 Spanish, 1 Mexican and 1 Indian by crucifixion.

The memorial that stands here commemorates the site at which they were crucified.

Whilst an interesting history lesson the whole area made me sick to my stomach with anger at what madness and barbarism man does to his fellow man all because of religion.

Ugh.

It was a nicely done memorial though. And the church with its crazy mosaics and abstract angels was a striking and impressive sight.

Our final tourist attraction that evening was Glover Garden. This is a garden (surprisingly) and a series of old houses in a western style dating back to the Victorian era/ Meiji-restoration. It’s situated up a hill (also surprisingly) overlooking the harbour below.

Being westerners and westerners that have seen plenty of Victorian architecture at that we weren’t too interested in visiting Glover Gardens. What attracted us there was an advertisement for a Beer Garden. Beer Gardens in Japan aren’t the back bit of a pub but rather a short lived attraction in the summer offering all you can drink booze and all you can eat buffet food in an open air environment. Stuffing ourselves in a Victorian garden with fantastic views of the harbour definitely appealed to Fran and I. Sadly the beer garden was cancelled for the day due to rain, although whilst we were there it was a balmy summer night and never rained once.

I am glad we went there though because the buildings served as an excellent and very informative museum about Glover Garden and the area around it. Basically this was the area where all the expats used to live back in the Meiji-era when expat meant Victorian industrialist. What I had no idea about was how influential and important these British industrialists were to the development of Japan. Thomas Glover, whom the area is named for brought the first steam locomotive to Japan and built the first steam ship. In fact the company he founded to manufacture steam ships eventually became the Mitsubishi Corporation. Even better then that Glover was the founder of the first ever brewery in Japan, a brewery that eventually underwent a name change and became Kirin Breweries; the makers of Kirin beer.

See the moustache on that horse, supposedly that is a little tribute to glover and his own quite iconic moustache.

Glover wasn’t alone in his endeavours either. The area around him was full of western style houses all the former abodes of industrialists that built ships, founded breweries, imported tea back to England (god bless those men, sniff, it makes me tear up a little) and worked tirelessly to bring Japanese culture to the west and vice versa.

The fact that they all clung together, had clubs together and built houses that tried to recapture home really spoke to me. These people had no internet, no television and no British radio. They were in a properly alien culture which they clearly loved but they missed home in ways I can only imagine. The strange compromise of half one lifestyle and half another will resonate with anyone who has ever been an expatriate. It was quite touching to realise that I had something in common with these people and quite fascinating to see what British comforts seemed to be important to them (fireplaces, beds and baths seemed to be the main ones and I can sympathise with all three).

Glover Garden also had some small curiosities such as this statue of Puccini and another statue of the famous heroine of his opera “Madam Butterfly”. Apparently the Soprano it was based on lived and worked in Nagasaki.

Oh yes and this brilliant monument marking the place where bowling was first introduced to Japan. I think that may be the best historical plaque I have yet seen. Particularly the stained glass bowling pins.

Finally one of the best things about going to Glover Garden was getting to meet these guys, Jan and Steven. Fran had spotted them talking at the entrance to the Garden in Dutch. Now Fran used to live in the Netherlands and speaks Dutch pretty much fluently. She thus likes to point out to me when she notices people speaking Dutch.

Can I just say that for a small nation, and a language that is only spoken in that one nation, Dutch speakers really get around. I have heard them (or rather had them pointed out to me) in Italy, nearly every major city in Japan and Newcastle. Dutch folks like to travel it seems.

Jan and Steven asked us a question about directions which we were happy to help them with, Fran pointed out the Dutch connection (the cheesier sequel…see what I did there) we got to chatting and we ended up hanging out for the rest of the evening.

Nice guys. They were in Japan with their company as part of a project. The project was over and they were headed on a whirlwind tour of Japanese destinations they had missed before they had to return home. It was fun introducing them to things they didn’t know and swapping ex-pat stories.

We wandered around the garden with them and then eventually into a small museum which contained replica boats. These are used in Nagasaki’s major festival. I particularly like the evil looking whale.

We also headed out to dinner with them. I had been itching to try out some Nagasaki Chinese food since it was supposed to be the best Chinese food in Japan. In particular I wanted to try some Champon, a kind of ramen made with a very salty soup and loaded up with literally every kind of topping imaginable. Fishcakes, carrots, cabbage, beansprouts, mushrooms, etc, etc.

At first we tried a Chinese restaurant that was recommended by our guidebook. No luck, it closed at 9 o’clock. So off we trudged to Chinatown.

Shut, shut, shut, shut. It seemed that every restaurant we tried was shut at 9 o’clock. What was that all about? Do people in Nagasaki not eat late? In most Japanese cities restaurants are full up until midnight with salaraymen leaving work and grabbing a quick bite. I personally have eaten at 4 in the morning in 2 major Japanese cities in quite nice cafes. Are there no salarymen in Nagasaki? What was going on?

Eventually we found a restaurant that was open and dug into 4 bowls of Champon and 3 massive beers.

The champon was good too. There were so many conflicting flavours that it was basically a flavour mess, although a predominantly salty flavour mess. But it was greasy, salty, loaded with MSG and went down nice and easy with a cold beer. Real comfort food and just what I needed.

Finally, bidding Jan and Steven “sayonara” and full up of Chinese we set off home. At which point the rain we had been promised started.

As you can see, it was quite a heavy rain.

Three things you must know about Kyushu. The old people are awesome. It is very hilly and hot. When it rains, you absolutely know that it has been raining.