If yesterday was, museum wise, mostly about Nagasaki before Japan opened to the outside world, today was about modern Nagasaki, after 1850. And of course the defining event for that era happened on August 9, 1945, at 11:02 am. We took the Nagasaki Denki to the Atomic Bomb Museum and Peace Park.
The museum is well done and moving. There was a crowd there, but that’s a good thing, lots of people should remember what happened. The most emotional thing for me was a compact poem written by a father after losing his wife and three children to the blast and its aftermath. I didn’t feel like taking photos, and I’m not sure I have more to say on such an enormous tragedy.
Afterwards we sat under the cherry blossoms in the Peace Park.
The bus and tram drivers often wear a headset microphone connected to a PA system, and they purr into it a soothing patter as your vehicle winds its way through city streets. It’s the same low key drawl no matter the driver. It this a class they take at transportation driver school?
Lunch was at an udon bar on the waterfront. The cook seemed kind of young and was in the weeds handling food orders from the equally kind of young waitress. Hmm, is this the norm? Then Mom materialized with groceries in her arms and whipped into action. Things were soon back on track. It was a brisk day and the warm soup felt good.
For the afternoon we headed up to Glover Gardens, named after Scotsman Thomas Glover, who moved to Nagasaki in 1859 and became a liaison for bringing western industrial technology to Japan. He built a handsome bungalow above the bay, and since then other old western style buildings have been consolidated in what is now Glover Gardens.
While walking over Michele said she would like to go to a coffee shop sometime and experience Japanese coffee craftsmanship. Right on cue there was a Dutch coffee room in Glover Gardens, with cold brew slow drip coffee and the much vaunted Castella cake. The coffee was good but the cake, well, meh, it was sponge cake. The apple pie was better.
I should have gotten my own coffee but I got distracted by “Butterfly Pea Soda” on the menu, aka “Japan Blue”. It’s made from Butterfly Pea flowers and when you add lemon juice the color should change from blue to purple. It’s kind of lost on me though, I’m red/green color blind. Like the cake it didn’t really taste that special. Pretty color!
Next to the gardens was a museum consisting of one big room full of festival (matsuri) floats. Michele was excited. Taiko, Shishi and matsuri go hand in hand in hand.
A traditional matsuri often involves large groups of people running around carrying heavy floats, often with taiko players inside, at dangerous speeds. The Nagasaki matsuri seems like no exception. This matsuri also features dancing dragons, showing the Chinese influence. The round botanical thing weighs at least 120kg and is carried by one man. I think they’re supposed to dance around a bit too. Ooof.
A Chinese Confucian shrine was on the way home. Yet more Shishi!
While Michele hung out with the lions I was conversing with the scholars.
Tomorrow we head to Imari, so we went with Chinese food for dinner tonight in Chinatown.
Ken Chin-Purcell 