Nagasaki

Last of the archived blogs now. Yay!

Nagasaki then. It was, unsurprisingly, rather good. However, I should probably start with the hows and whys.

There’s a “rule” in Kumamoto-ken that ALTs are not allowed to work over 20 days a month. When they told us this during the closing stages of the Tokyo Orientation there were cheers even through the Jet-Lag assisted exhaustion. This Kumamoto exclusive allowed me 3 “choseibi” days off during August which I was required by law to take. Well well well. How marvellous. However, I found myself at something of a loss; what to do with 3 days off? I can’t just sit in my apartment eating noodles for three days straight (which is the only foodstuff I currently have in my kitchen). Luckily, the Kumamoto City orientation provided the answer in the form of a group of ALTs heading off to Nagasaki. I was kindly invited along, but only after I promised to stop attempting a cockney accent (something which I’ve become curiously fond of recently).

So, after a 2 hour bus ride to reach our departure port I find out that all but one of the group has had to pull out as their BOE (Board of Education) had stuff for them to do. The one remaining ALT, a South African called Megan, is a Senior High School teacher the same as me, who reports directly to the Prefectural BOE rather than any local council one. We decided that as I’d come so far we’d throw four fingers (two sets of two) up at the other ALTs and go anyway. So we did.

First stop was Nagasaki-shi (shi=city) itself. After an extremely short ferry ride we arrived and flatly failed to find the Youth Hostel we were staying in. Infact, we went to the opposite end of the main street and stood for a good ten minutes scaring the locals with our odd language and copious sweating. Yes, it’s hot in Nagasaki too.

After finding the Hostel (and discovering its 11 o’clock curfew) we headed to the place every tourist goes to first, the A-Bomb museum. It turns out Megan is a bit of a museum nut, even going so far as to consider a Masters in Museum Studies so it took us about 3 or 4 hours to get around the various sections. Which is not to say it wasn’t interesting, on the contrary it was fascinating in a rather morbid manner. I did however leave with mixed feelings; no doubt the A-bomb was too harsh a measure to take (especially seeing as the US’s own advisors had predicted Japan’s surrender with or without the use of the Bomb) but I couldn’t help noticing the lack of information surrounding Japan’s role in the war. They seemed to be presented as an innocent and unsuspecting party, which is blatantly untrue. Oh well.

We visited the Hypocentre (the exact spot where the bomb exploded) and the Peace Park (a rather kitsch collection of statues including the faintly ridiculous Peace Statue) and called it a day. However, we did pop down to the Wharf for a drink and the smallest pizzas you have ever seen in your life. Possibly their growth was stunted by the residual radiation. Who knows?

The second day in the city was spent temple hopping. There’s a street that contains nothing but temples, shrines and graveyards so we spent most of the day wandering into the variously coloured and increasingly impressive buildings, eventually ending up being force fed beer by the caretaker of one particularly fine example. He was lovely though, and gave us both a patterned tea towel as way of thanks for filling his lunch with Gaijin-goodness. Mm-mmm.

I also bumped into my Tokyo roommate; it turns out that all the new Nagasaki JETs were in the city for their Orientation which was a complete coincidence. Anyway, we rejected his offer to join the NagaALTs in an all you can drink party and instead took a ropeway to the top of the local mountain, Inasa, to see the city at night. I took loads of photos but none came out. D’oh.

The next day we heading to areas more rural, firstly stopping at the spa town of Unzen nestled below an active volcano. It was temperate, it was sunny, it was haunting. Until it started raining. With our accommodation waiting for us the next town over, we headed out without seeing either the volcano or much of the geysers which was disappointing. We were booked into another youth hostel in the Castle town of Shimabara and it was there we headed, keeping marginally ahead of the rain. We arrived just in time to watch them close the castle gates and shoo off any hangers on so retired to catch up on some much needed sleep.

On the final day we finally made it to the castle (not as nice as Kumamoto’s) and also to some old Samurai houses (with scary plastic mannequins). Taking the ferry home, we arrived in good old Kumamoto in time for a quick stop into an old folks home (where they gave me more free beer) and I made it home yesterday.

To finish, here is a list of thing what I have ate:

Raw horse meat
Moving raw fish
Lots of squid
Fried Octopus Dough-balls (takoyaki)
Fermented soy beans (sticky)
Enough rice to fill a large barn
My pride.


The ridiculous looking Nagasaki Peace Statue. Looks like a Pokemon.


The interior of one of the myriad of temples we went to.


Some lovely mountains in Shimabara.


Shimabara Castle. An amazing photo by me if I do say so myself.