Nagasaki: sightseeing

In this post, you'll notice many links. They will take you to pictures on my flickr pages. Let me know what you think of this system. It should make the blog load faster and cleaner. Plus, you can browse through all of the pictures (and more eventually) together on flickr or look at the single pictures at these links. So, let me know.

I went to Nagasaki in the first full week of March to visit my good friend Ayako. I met Ayako at Benedictine College last year and was so happy to get an opportunity to visit her in her hometown and meet her family. Our shared cultural experience is now complete, as she came to visit my family twice while in the states!

Nagasaki, as many of you likely know, was the second city in Japan to be struck with a nuclear bomb by the US ending WWII. I knew I was going to have to face that as an American visiting. Of course, what I didn’t realize until later was that about anyone visiting Nagasaki has to face this fact. What I didn’t expect was Ayako’s dad asking me the first night of my visit if visiting the atomic bomb museum was the purpose for my visit. I explained that his daughter was the purpose of my visit. But the second day, we went to the hypocenter, peace park (and its famous statue), and museum, where we both got headaches. There are many monuments for peace in Nagasaki, it has seen its share of violence over many centuries, and almost all of them are draped with strings of origami cranes. One thousand cranes are supposed to give good health. and/or good fortune. Because of a famous story of a young girl sick with radiation poisoning (that I read in third grade) the cranes have also become associated with victims of the nuclear bombings. One of the monuments, a pillar, lifts an eternal flame over ground zero; its source comes from the Olympic torch, a flame often given to support peace.

My headache turned out to be part of a cold that I’d been fighting for a couple weeks. The next morning, it caught up with me and I spent most of the day in bed with a fever, runny nose, headache, and cough. Ayako is a very good nurse! Sorry to Ayako and her family for causing trouble!

The next day we saw more of Nagasaki’s touristy sites including spectacles bridge (the round arches of the bridge reflect in the water and look like spectacles!) From there we took a bus, a walk, and a street car to Dejima, an artificial island created where the Portuguese and then Dutch traders and merchants were exiled during the Japanese period of national seclusion. During that time, Dejima was the only part of Japan where foreigners were allowed. The gate at the one bridge on and off the island were very carefully guarded. Though the original island is gone, it is being reconstructed as it was in the early 1800’s and there is a scale model showing each building and the gardens. From Dejima, we walked to Nagasaki Seaside park near the harbor and enjoyed the warm spring weather and the great view of the water, the major bridge, Mt. Inasa, and the wharf. And also a pile of sod that looked like a dragon (or possibly a camel… or maybe it was just me.)

Friday night Ayako and I went to Urakami Cathedral (which has been reconstructed since its destruction in when the nuclear bomb hit nearby) to visit and attend mass. It had originally been completed in 1925, after 30 years of construction. At that time it was the largest church in the Orient. Rebuilt in 1959, it has a more modern (in architecture and furnishings, not layout or structure) style than most of the cathedrals I’ve seen.

The next day Ayako and I met one of her friends and we walked past Oura Catholic Church (a beautiful white French missionary church built in 1864, and the oldest existing church in Japan) on our way to Glover Garden. After the end of Japan’s period of seclusion (mid-nineteenth century) many Scottish, British, and Irish men came to Nagasaki to open businesses and make their fortune. They helped build a productive and strong city from the quiet collection of fishing towns it had previously been. The leader among these was Thomas Glover. He also started schools for local children. Glover Garden is his land and buildings, and the neighboring lands and homes formerly belonging to other Western merchants, restored to maintain the spirit and lives of these famous former Nagasaki residents. This community of the Nagasaki foreign settlement found Tamaki Miura, the famous Japanese opera singer, star of Puccini’s opera Madame Butterfly as it was originally performed. The opera is set in Nagasaki and is one of the pieces of history preserved at Glover Garden.

Also, we got to dress up in Victorian-style costumes! Yay old-timey clothes and old-timey pictures. I’m expecting a few more pictures from Ayako, including one of me in a pin-up pose! Oh my!

On the way back down the street outside of the gardens, were many good souvenir shops. But only ONE had a bunch of crazy and joke gifts. That’s where I found the perfect souvenir for Amy. No, Amy, you still don’t get to know what it is. We also got mild electric shocks from a joke can of beer and the store owner showed us a card trick. We followed up all the walking with dinner and karaoke!

On my last day, Ayako, her mother, and I went to see the Site of the Martyrdom of the 26 Saints of Japan. During the period of seclusion, the emperors performed searches of the country for Christians in hiding, asking them to stomp on images of Christ and the Saints. In Kyoto, 26 Catholic men, women, and children were found and marched about 1000 miles to Nagasaki (where the biggest population of Christians was believed to be, and the root of Christianity in Japan) over the period of a month. They arrived through the snow in early February and were crucified high on the hillsides of the town, children included, on the fifth of February. Later the martyrs were canonized by the church and a memorial was eventually erected. Pope John Paul II visited the monument in 1981. There is a museum dedicated to the memories of the martyrs and the movement of Christianity in Japan behind the monument.

There was just not enough time for me to see everything in Nagasaki, especially having to take a sick day. It was really great to see the history of a place as unique as Nagasaki, and to visit it with Ayako, a great friend of mine, and a native of the beautiful city. Next post will be what it was like to stay with Ayako and her family and all the awesome food I had!

Current Music : Night Drive, by Jimmy Eat World