Arriving to Nagasaki

After Himeji next stop would be Nagasaki at the Kyuushuu island. First time for me in Japan when I go out of main Island. This is pretty much as as west as you can get here.

Waking up on the morning I did my morning preparations, checked out my key and entered to...pouring rain. Good thing I had water resistant coat with me!

 Breakfast for today. That juice actually had small pieces of apple inside it. Made interesting experience drinking it. Nothing unusual in the bento box tastewise either.

I had arrived 30 minute early to the station and checking above timetable verified I hadn't gained anything by it. Had to wait for my train. Thankfully despite rain it was not cold.

And soon enough weather improved as I moved toward west.

I had to get off the Shinkansen at the Shin-tosu and switch to Nagasaki line. SLOOOOOW! It took some 3 hours with shinkansen to get from Himeji to north of Kyuushuu and then some 4 hours with the Nagasaki line. This was in part why I had opted to stay at the Himeji. Unfortunately this also meant that I would have only few hours of sunlight today.

Clock was about 3pm when I got there so I figured I might be able to check in right away and leave my bags there so I headed to the hotel. To do this I needed to learn how to use the streetcars here. Not too complex and was kindly explained by couple old ladies(of course as I later found out there was detailed explanation in English RIGHT BEHIND ME but hey gave me chance to practice Japanese :D). Enter from the middle, when leaving pay 120yen(adult). Flat fee regardless how far you go. Simple. There's one day pass available which gets cheaper if you do 5+ travels.

This came even easier when I got to hotel where I received map which also included the streetcar lines. Yey! I had some routes planned but this pretty much made them useless. Holy batman Nagasaki started to feel very foreigner friendly :)

 Spectacle bridge. Actually one(small) landmark in Nagasaki. And right next to my hotel(think that red you can see behind is sign of the hotel).

 Arriving to the hotel I checked in and paid in full. Tad more pricey than last hotel but still reasonable at 42 euro per night. For 2 person room. Short of going very far from the main station wasn't able to find cheaper hotel so had to settle for 2 person room.

Nice enough room though no table to really sit next to it so I'm writing this while lying on the bed(lower one). Not best hotel rooms I have stayed though. Apart from lack of table it's small details that make it stand out in not so good ways like slightly too small toilet and no free towel. Luckily brought own with me for these sort of situations.

View from the window. Bridge is the Spectacle Bridge.

 So with sunlight being limited opted to see what I expected to be less time consuming of the things I wanted to see. Oora church which is oldest surviving wooden gothic style church. Nagasaki used to be the place in Japan where Europeans were in the Edo period and basically home of Christianity in the Edo period before it was stampped out(quite violently at times) when Japan opted to isolate itself from rest of the world

At the moment less than surprisingly(seems to be common theme) there was yet again school excursion trip so path to the church was positively flooded with school kids. Add one more type of school uniforms for both sexes that I have seen. 8 girl/5 boy now.

The church. No photographing allowed inside :(

Nearby building.

Ditto.

Closeup of the church.

Statue at the front.

I just realized how little photos I took...Urgh. Wonder why I was so careless. Wasn't my own clearly. And quality of photos worse than usual :(

Nearby was Glover garden. Glover was a Scotch who came to Japan when it was opened and contributed a lot on modernizing the Japan. Though he was called "Brown Devil" due to his looks it seems he was still liked. I was able to receive slight discount thanks to discount pass Nagasaki has started to hand down for quick visitors that is valid for 3 days.

Amidst the Garden were his and couple other European merchant families houses. Nice living place and I love the views. They had pretty nice places to live I would imagine.

Glover himself.

Statue of Japanese who spent 30 years or so travelling and singing and thereby bringing attention of the world toward Japan,

One of the old homes for westerners. Mix of western and Japanese style. Mostly western.

Ah what a view.

Inside another house were this old Kimonos.

And fan. These were used as part of performance(she was actress).

Firestove inside another building.

 Living room. Clearly rich family owned this building.

 I guess there could be worse apartments to live in!

 Very nice miniature of ancient Nagasaki.

 Another building had small scale models of ships. Makes sense since these guys were merchants.

 What a details!

 Prayer waterfall.

 Living room inside above building.

 There was funny little episode after I left this place. As I mentioned before there was lots of schoolkids around. So here I was climbing stairway when group of likely junior highschools(grades 7-9) kids came down. One boy, encouraged by teacher, suddenly asked me "where do you come from?". Hearing Finland another boy suddenly yells "I love Finland!" :D Kids! Always funny ;) First time any kid suddenly starts talking to me. Wish they would do more of that!

 There was yet another carp pond. Looks quiet enough...

But when school boy threw in fodder...Mad rush!

Another funny episode was right after when I came to good place for views of Nagasaki. There was older lady and younger lady(her daughter I presumed since they had arrived together). I approached nearest who was the older one and(using about as polite Japanese as I can muster. Super-polite forms are beyond my ability yet) asked if I she would be willing to take photo of me. She actually appeared more than a little shaken and shaking hands she promptly put the younger women(clearly daughter!) up for the task :D

Guess she's not used to foreigners(albeit Japan isn't full of those) so even one speaking(albeit not that fluent) Japanese might be bit scary.

But at least got nice picture.

 She thought this direction would be prettier but unfortunately sun behind spoils it a bit. Though interesting looking photo anyway.

 On the way back there was some sort of...something boat shaped.

 Some sort of dragons?

By now I was getting very hungry. Had eaten station bento on the shinkansen. Then on change hadn't been smart enough to buy anything. On Nagasaki I was then in hurry to not waste daylight so basically had eaten nothing for good 9 hours or so. And bento wasn't that big even!

So here the map I had been given proved useful. There was mention of one of top-3 chinatowns in Japan that was nearby.

Chinatown. Never been to one. Likely(and promised by the map) to contain lots of chinese restaurants. I love chinese food. I'm hungry enough to eat a bison...Needless to say chinatown was my next point of interest!

 Entrance to the chinatown.

Opted for this "sauteed diced chicken and chashew nuts" along with bottle of sweet sake. Very good meal though pricey. Nuts I loved. Good addition to the meal. Could have eaten another plate but at over 2000 yen(big size plate) too expensive.

Chairs also had chinese style bags.

After this I headed to book store I had seen while in streetcar heading to chinatown. My reading speed has increased enough that supposedly sufficient quota of reading was starting to wear down. 8 hours spent in travel gives plenty of time. Then I went to hotel for quiet evening.

Tomorrow I'll be going to at least see the a-bomb memorial area. Not sure what else I have time for tomorrow.