Nagasaki

Its been over a week, but last Monday and Tuesday I decided to hell with it, and after booking a hotel, I hit the rails bound for Nagasaki. From Kurume, Nagasaki city in Nagasaki Prefecture is about an hour and 45 minutes. I first had to travel to Tosu, a city 2 stops away in Saga Prefecture. Tosu is a crossroads, and after switching to the rapid train I was on my way to Nagasaki. The countryside was particularly beautiful as I traveled through both Saga and Nagasaki Prefectures; I saw plenty of rice fields and the train eventually traveled along the coast.
When I arrived I immediately boarded a trolley (Roman Densha ロマン電車） and got off at the stop in front of the peace park (Heiwa Koen - 平和公園). Constructed in the 1950's, the peace park now boasts statues of saints donated from various countries. In the center is a statue of a greek-like diety simply known as the peace statue. It seemed both out of place and appropriate at the same time. From there, I took a 5 minute walk to the Urakami Cathedral. Once the biggest church in East Asia, it is said that Urakami Cathedral took 3 decades to construct and 3 seconds to be destroyed by the Atomic Bomb. Continuing on with my tour of depressing landmarks, I traveled to the Atomic Bomb Museum, which housed remnants of buildings melted and twisted by the bomb blast, along with photos, videos, and testamonials from various A-bomb survivors (Hibakusha- 被爆者). Particularly moving if ghastly was the site of a man on a ladder. While the ladder and the man were utterly destroyed by the bomb blast, the intense heat wave generated by the explosion seared the shadows of both onto a wall in a sort of twisted memorial. Determined to see all things related to the horrific event befalling Nagasaki on August 9th, 1945, my final stop was at Hypocenter park. This park is rather plain except for a single statue and a black monolith marking the exact point above which the A-bomb exploded at 11:02 AM.
In the mood for something cheerier, after lunch I traveled the opposite direction on the trolleys to Dejima Island. During the closed country ( sakoku-鎖国) period, enacted by the Tokugawa Shogunate (specifically by Tokugawa Iemitsu) through a number of edicts between 1635 and 1641, the country of Japan was technically off limits to foreigners until it was reopened by Commadore Perry reopened the country in 1853 (it remained illegal to leave Japan until the Meiji Restoration in 1868). However, a loophole was left in this policy through the creation of the artifical island of Dejima. This island, constructed out of sand and reenforced artifically, was the only place in Japan that foreigners (specifically the Dutch) could come and trade for Japanese goods. While the Dutch were basically restricted from leaving the island from the mid 17th century onward, through the trade provided for by the Dutch of Dejima, the Japanese gained knowledge of a variety of subjects and were able to keep apprised of the various developments outside of their country. Today the island is no longer an island at all. Through a variety of land reclamantion acts passed at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries, the area around Dejima was filled in. Today, the `island' is infact landlocked, surrounded by office buildings and perhaps .15 miles from the shore. However, the Japanese have done a fairly admirable job in restoring the island at least partially, with dutch buildings etc, and it was a very interesting historic sight to see. Finally, at the end of the day, I traveled up inasa mountain via cable car where i took some spectacular pictures of the city at night.
The next day, I went to temple row and checked out Shofuku-ji temple, a buddhist temple obviously influenced by chinese architecture, as well as several other small and large temples. I went no the day of obon, a day on which the Japanese travel to the graves of their ancestors and pay homage to them, so I saw many people praying at the temples. It was fascinating really. However, it started to rain, and so I hopped on a trolley, hit the biggest Shinto shrine in Nagasaki (Suwa shrine) (after climbing up several hundred stairs), and then high-tailed it out of Nagasaki. Anyone visiting Kyushu, make this historical and amazing city a priority for sure.