Nagasaki

Our first stop for the southern island of Kyushu was the port city of Nagasaki. I'm sure it's been said many times, but it reminded us a lot of San Francisco - not just in looks and trams, but also the cuisine and mix of cultures. Nagasaki is a very vibrant and friendly city and we loved it immediately. Our accomodation for the next 2 nights was Akari backpackers and just upstream from the famous Megane-bashi (Spectacles Bridge). In fact, there are 10 old stone bridges across the river in this section, all originally leading to the many temples lining the street parallel at the foot of the hillside. Nagasaki, of course, is also (in)famous as another nuclear bomb target but it's remebrance is of a somewhat different feel here and we also decided to experience the other flavours of the city instead.

Megane-bashi

That evening we decided to take the trams to Glover Gardens at the south entrance to the harbour on the hill. This was mainly for the view - we had seen photographs and heard it was a good place to view the city in the evening and also relatively easy to get to. We had thought that we might just see the view from beside the gardens without actually going into them as seeing western gardens and old western residences in Japan did not interest us all that much. As it turned out, we had to pay the entrance fee to even just see the view and we were actually really glad we did because it was beautiful! The location is wonderful and there were many viewpoints to overlook the city. The history was actually quite fascinating and old for our NZ standards! The old residences are quite unique and though western, there is a lot of influence from the Japanese, particularly in the garden design. Makes for a really interesting combination.

 

Us at Glover Gardens, overlooking Nagasaki

Glover's house overlooking the city - Glover was a scottsman, so there was bagpipe music playing!

Nagasaki after sunset from Glover Gardens

Our day in Nagasaki the next day was pretty quiet as we didn't have anything in particular to see. Dave went out and explored while I let my stomach rest a bit! We had really great food here, including trying the local specialty, Champon, which is a type of soba noodle soup with all sorts of seafood in it. It's a blend of Japanese and Chinese cuisine - the Chinese have a huge presence in this city, including a chinatown district and a few temples. The Champon also reminded us a lot of eating seafood chowder in San Francisco!