Day 1- Nagasaki is across a bay from where I live, so we took one of those ferries that you drive your car onto. It was only about a 45 minute ferry ride. We were early, so we headed to a city called Shimabara.... or something like that. My older host brother Genki had to do something, so my host dad took me to see a volcano. This one isn`t a tourist attraction, because it erupted five years ago, and you can still see the path the lava took all the way down to the sea. On our way towards a spot where we could see the volcano, and go to a museum, we saw a school.... not a normal school. This school was one of the fews things left standing from the volcano blast, but it was totally gutted out. You could see things on the playground melted together and such. My host dad was telling me how he could see the blast from Tamana, which is a good 50 miles or more across the bay. He said the sky was blood red. The good news is the lava flow was not major, because some hills kind of funneled it down into the sea.

 

After the volcano, we headed towards Nagasaki. We got into the city around night time, and the dad was tired. We checked into a hotel in the heart of the city, which by the way was only $30 a night, and better than any American hotel at least twice the price. We got two rooms, thankfully the young brother was in the room with my host dad. I was with Genki, and I must admit I cheated on my eleven o`clock curfew. Genki and I went and played coin games across the street. Now, coin games are so worthless, I mean, it`s insane. Genki spent close to fifty dollars on these games. All you do is win medals, that don`t go towards prizes or anything. We toppled a tower of coins in some game, so we played for hours. And there is a lot of satisfaction.... at least when it`s not your money. So we went back to the hotel room around 1 in the morning... I am not corrupting the child, don`t worry the host dad was sound asleep in another room.

 

Day 2- So every knows Nagasaki, because we dropped a rather large bomb on it. Naturally, we went to the atomic bomb museum. The Japanese don`t do emotion very well, but with that said, this is still a heavy place to go. Japan isn`t like America, where graphic images will be complained about by some politically correct mor..... person. When I say graphic, I mean it. Some pictures just hit you hard. The debate is still on whether it was justified or not. They had English for everything too, so I got to see the Japanese side of the story. It really isn`t a whole lot different, but the Japanese claim that they were ready to surrender before the bomb was dropped. The debate could go on, and I won`t drag it out, but even after going to the museum, I still think it was something that had to be done.

 

After the museum, we went to the peace park. It was alright, but nothing really incredible. Took some pictures, and got on our way. Our next stop was Glover Gardens. Glover, I forget his first name, was a Scottish guy who was a pretty major guy in Japan. He helped a lot with the Meiji Restoration. And back in the day, Nagasaki was the only port open to Western Trade. Glover was kind of the front runner in bringing Western culture to Japan. The Gardens were actually his entire grounds, which overlooked a lake, or some body of water. The place had a great view, but unfortunately it is winter, so no flowers.

 

Last stop in Nagasaki was some kind of Wharf. It was built to look like a San Francisco pier or something. All I know is we ate at a restaurant there with some very good tacos.

 

This was my trip Nagasaki as condensed as I could make it. Going from a volcano to an atom bomb museum in the span of 24 hours really takes it out on you. I was extremely tired, and I decided the best way to fix this was go to Kumamoto City and have dinner with friends and not sleep all night.