The front door of Hotel Tobu looked right across a security fence onto the tarmac where our plane to Nagasaki sat. In some fantasy version of this trip we would just have walked over and got on, but of course what we really did was board the shuttle bus, get dropped off deep into Narita Airport and walk a ways back. We wound up in Narita Terminal 3, which is where the domestic budget airlines leave from and has all the charm of a shipping container.
On our way to our seats we scanned our boarding passes and passports, but nobody ever checked our ID or did a face scan, at least that we noticed. In a driving rain we loaded from a bus, up a stairway and onto the plane. Our seats were right behind the door and we had a good view of the small pond forming inside as the rain came down.
Is this a problem? Do airplanes work soaking wet? Evidently not a problem! Just before they closed the door a helpful worker clad in yellow rain gear, starting carefully at the edge of the pilot’s cabin, corralled the water back out with a squeegee. The flight attendant handed me a paper napkin in case I felt damp.
I think these flight attendants feel some pressure on their English. The one who did the announcements read from a prepared script and kept looking at us afterwards for confirmation, even though she was perfectly understandable. I tried to be encouraging with smiles and thumbs up – we were all kind of laughing about it by the end of the flight.
We flew right by Fuji-san:
Kyushu, the southern island where we’re headed, looked mountainous. Nagasaki airport is built on an artificial island in a secluded bay. The express way, and I assume the train line, has an impressive sequence of tunnels and bridges on the way from the airport into the city. It made me think of San Diego’s claimed difficulty of building and maintaining a train line to the rest of the US, supposedly because of the terrain. A trip to Japan or Switzerland reminds you that it’s just a matter of will – it’s certainly possible.
Our hotel is next to a small but vibrant Chinatown.
Michele has already been on Shishi (mythical lion) watch.
We had a lunch of Champon and Sara-udon, which are some local Chinese-Japanese fusion dishes. They had a Cantonese vibe, with a variety of fresh ingredients and not spicy. Champon is a noodle soup with lots of seafood, Soba-udon a saucy stir fry over crispy (or soft!) noodles. Michele liked her Soba-udon enough that she didn’t want to share. Here I am with what Ryoko says is my “capybara smile”.
For the two centuries before Japan’s opening to the West in the 1850’s Nagasaki was Japan’s only interface to the outside world, and the Dutch were the only ones permitted to trade there. They were confined to the small fan shaped island of Dejima, which at the time was at the edge of the city. Since then Nagasaki has expanded into the bay and the island was subsumed, but it has now been excavated and reconstructed as a museum.
As a museum it was still “in preparation”, as several signs said. They found a lot of porcelain and storage jars in the excavations, and so in a half dozen of the reconstructed buildings you would go in and find lots of porcelain shards and old jars. Even me, a potter, got a little tired of it. The governor’s house was well done though.
Afterwards we wandered down to the waterfront and discovered the source of all the Chinese tourists, the “Blue Dream Melody” was in port.
It’s also cherry blossom season, although these trees might be a hybrid cherry, Somei-Yoshino.
Is it a real cherry tree? Do they produce edible cherries? Do Japanese eat lots of cherries, sour or sweet? Or is just all about the flowers? These are currently open questions.
We were thinking of having a Chinese dinner but the cruisers had wholesale bought out the restaurants in Chinatown. You would think maybe they would try another cuisine… So we wheeled around and found a good restaurant street. We stopped in a random izakaya with a bit of a dive bar vibe. Good sashimi though! The variety of fish here is great.
The Translate app on our phone has been super useful, but it really didn’t know what to do with “today’s specials”.
Ken Chin-Purcell 