Nagasaki Sightseeing

From Hiroshima, I traveled to Nagasaki. There were three reasons why I wanted to go to Nagasaki: I had yet to go there, I was pretty sure it would be a nice place to visit, and, most of all, I wanted to see the peace ceremony on August 9.

As a matter of fact, when I first found out that I would be arriving in Takachiho on August 8 last year, I contacted my supervisor (to be) and asked him if there was any way I could get to Nagasaki by the 9th (yes, the day after I was supposed to arrive in town!). He told me that that wouldn't be possible and that I should go there in 2008 instead. And this July my supervisor was good enough to remind me about Nagasaki. So I had to save face and make the trip. (Ha ha!)

Since I had missed the ceremony in Hiroshima, I was determined to at least make it to Nagasaki in time. So I left Hiroshima on August 8, giving myself plenty of time to get there.

Instead of traveling by shinkansen once again, I opted to travel by highway bus. Even though the ride to Fukuoka, my first stop, took about four hours, as opposed to the one hour plus that it would have taken by train, it only put me back 4000 yen, instead of the 8500 or so I would have spent had I taken the train. I certainly could have afforded to pay the extra 4500 yen (about $40) that the shinkansen would have cost, but I was in no hurry, I wanted to see what riding a bus across part of Japan was like, and I didn't see anything wrong with trying to save a little money. So I went with the cheaper option.

Besides being affordable, the highway buses in Japan are surprisingly comfortable and convenient. If you're not sure exactly what I mean, think Greyhound versus a privately chartered tour bus. Here, no one riding the bus is rude, noisy, smelly, or scary, and the drivers are polite and smartly dressed (they even often wear white gloves!) and actually know where they are going.

Another thing about the highway buses is that en-route, all the bus stops are located along the highway (except for perhaps the first and last few stops). So rather than constantly pulling off the highway, heading over to a bus station, and then making its way back onto the highway, the bus simply pulls over at the designated stopping points along the (high)way, drops off and/or picks up passengers, and continues on its way. Nice, eh?

Oh and by the way, I have discovered that if you want to travel a long distance by train in Japan, unlike in several European countries, you have only two options: Either fork out for the bullet train (bite the bullet!) or be prepared for a tortuous ordeal involving endless transfers from one agonizingly slow train to another. So the highway buses are a very popular third option for long-distance, and even short-distance, travel.

Anyway, the bus ride wasn't really that exciting, except maybe for the 20 or 30 seconds it took us to cross the bridge from Honshu to Kyushu.

Shortly after I arrived in Fukuoka, I caught another highway bus south down to Kumamoto. That trip took another 2 hours and cost another 2000 yen, but talk about convenient! Throughout the day, buses run along the route nearly every 20 minutes! I couldn't believe it.

(Well, actually I could believe it, since I had looked up the schedule before I left Hiroshima. But still, I'm amazed at how often the buses run! Then again, I know from personal experience that the subways in major cities come as often as every 3 minutes at times, even on weekends and holidays, so I should stop being amazed at the efficiency of Japan's public transportation networks.)

Buying my ticket was also easy as pie, since there were plenty of automated ticket machines at the bus station, meaning I didn't have to stress out waiting in a line. That was great! I'm telling you, the Japanese really are good at this transportation thing.

When I arrived in Kumamoto, Courtney picked me up and then we drove west to the ferry terminal. Lucky for us, since we didn't have a schedule (some things I planned well, other things I didn't), we arrived in time to catch the last ferry of the day. (If we had missed that ferry, we would have had to drive north and then back west and south all the way around Omura Bay. What a pain that would have been!) And doubly lucky for us, we were able to buy our round-trip tickets for 50% off.

The next day, we got up early and made our way to the Nagasaki Peace Park. We got there about an hour before the peace ceremony was to begin and were able to get great seats that were only several rows from the front and just to the left of where the VIPs were going to sit.

The ceremony started at 10:50 a.m., lasted for about an hour, and included such things as the moment of silence at 11:02, wreath laying, a speech from a survivor of the bombing, a short speech by the then Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda (he has since resigned!), doves (or were they pigeons?) being released, and children singing.

Besides experiencing the ceremony itself, I also enjoyed chatting with the two charming ladies whom we sat next to, as well as the schoolchildren I met while I was walking around before the ceremony. (It's usually very easy to get into a conversation with little kids over here, since they are often awestruck at the sight of foreigners.) I had read that Americans would be more than welcome at the ceremony, and indeed we were.

After the ceremony, Courtney and I walked around the Peace Park. Near the Atomic Bomb Museum, we were invited by some college students to make origami cranes. Luckily, they gave us step-by-step (or rather "fold-by-fold") instructions! We finished our cranes, taped them to a memorial, took some pictures, and went on our way.

Then, we met a strange lady. I had asked her if she happened to know of a place nearby where we could eat and the next thing we knew, she had invited herself to tag along with us for lunch. In the course of our casual conversation while waiting for a table, I asked her where she worked. All she could come up with was a really strange non-answer. I guess I've read too many crazy stories in the news, but I got some really weird vibes from that lady and decided that the best thing to do was to bail on her. So we got up, left the restaurant, and continued on our own.

The rest of the day we spent visiting the Atomic Bomb Museum, riding the streetcars (since we had bought a one-day pass and wanted to make the most of it), walking around the harbor, and otherwise just relaxing.

And around 7 p.m., we returned to the Peace Park so we could take part in the lantern festival. We each picked up a lantern and proceeded to walk with a bunch of other people for about ten minutes until we reached the river. There, we handed over our lanterns to the organizers and watched as they finished preparing the floats and eventually sent them down the river. And thus ended our first night in Nagasaki.

(For the record, the Hiroshima lantern festival was a lot more impressive, since there was live music and a ton of people, the lanterns were put in the river one by one as opposed to being connected to each other, and the location was more central.)

The next morning, we skipped the traditional Japanese breakfast (good ol' rice balls, called onigiri, and miso soup) that we could have had for free at our hotel and instead went to a restaurant that we had spotted the day before called "Royal Host." And guess what we ordered? Pancakes! Yes, that's right: Pancakes, with butter and (fake) maple syrup! What a treat! It just goes to show that the food in Japan isn't all that bad after all, as long as you can get away from the Japanese food often enough!

After breakfast, we did a little bit of sightseeing in southern Nagasaki prefecture. The coolest thing we came across was a mini torii perched atop a big rock along the shoreline. The next-coolest thing we saw was Hashima Island, located a couple of kilometers off in the distance. At first glance, we thought the island was a container ship heading out to sea. But then we realized that what we were looking at was the deserted coal mining island that we had heard about. What an odd sight that was!

The last place we went sightseeing was Shimabara, a town located about 45 km east of Nagasaki. There, we killed some time on the grounds of Shimabara castle, mostly just goofing off by taking pictures of ourselves in front of statues, before driving over to the port and catching the ferry back to Kumamoto.

The next day, Courtney and I both headed back to school. The funny thing was, though, that just about no other teachers were there, since there was still one week of vacation left. But this being Japan, well, just about the only way to avoid being at school during vacation (unless there's a national holiday, for instance) is to take nenkyu, or paid vacation (we get 20 days of nenkyu per year). And since we both decided to save our nenkyu for some other time, it was off to school we went.

Spending my days in the teachers room all by myself actually went better than I expected. I could pretty much come and go as I pleased (i.e., long lunch break), I could do whatever I wanted (I even watched the Olympics on TV for a few minutes), and I wasn't bothered by anyone (or anyone making annoying noises for that matter!).

So all in all, that week of "work" was really equal to a week of free nenkyu, if you know what I mean. Not a bad way to end my second exciting and relaxing vacation in Japan!