Chinatown, Churches and Champon

Holiday time again! Woooo! This time I went with my friend Rebecca alllll the way down to the South of Japan - not quite the tip, but almost. We went to Kyushu which is the third largest island of Japan's main four. Our trip entailed visits to Nagasaki, and an island called Yakushima. Nagasaki was on my 'list of places to see before I leave Japan' list - I was really interested in the influence of its historical port around the city, and turbulant history with Jesuits, Portuguese, Dutch, Chinese and various other peoples from around the world.

Nagasaki is a charming city. It has lots of character and atmosphere and a slightly european feel to it as well. You can walk down nicely laid stone paths by the riverside, the often higgledy-piggeldy lack of colour coordination that you regularly see in Japanese houses, actually makes Nagasaki a little similiar to the various colours of Prague. Nagasaki has two large hills that surround it to make it a sort of valley. From either side you can walk up and admire the view.

Colourful houses and buildings crawl up the hills around Nagasaki.

KAWAI COOKIES!

This is an artists interpretation of what riding the ropeway up to see the view of Nagasaki is like!

Nagasaki from the top of the ropeway in the evening. A bit chilly, but a lovely view!


We visited a Chinese temple 'Sofukuji' which was refreshing from the TEMPLE OVERLOAD you can often get whilst in Japan. We also went along to Glover Garden - a series of European influence houses and gardens built for a Scottish Entrepeneur who helped contribute to the modernization of Japan.

Rebecca shows off Sofuku Temple

Glover Garden had a load of really big Koi, some of the biggest I've seen so far (this ones for cousin Nick!)

Being the kind and considerate English ALTs that me and Rebecca are, we pretended to be some random tourists and approached a group of girls to ask if they would take our photo! A bit shocked by our approach we started talking to them, which apparently gave them license to include us in their school trip memories! We bumped into them again a bit later, when they had a photo taken with Rebecca instead!

The cherry blossoms were just starting to come out in Nagasaki.

Posing as models in the european house!

The nicest places for me were the churches around Nagasaki. I miss all the beautiful churches we have in England, all the interesting architecture and the interesting histories surrounding the many churches. From the time when the Portuguese landed in Kyushu and started teaching the Japanese about Christianity, Nagasaki has always had a high concentration of Christians living there. We visited two churches - the first being the the only church which is a national treasure in Japan 'Oura Church- which was apparently built in a gothic style, but to me looked a little lacking in character. The nicest church was Urakami Cathedral, which used to be the biggest in East Asia until the Atomic bomb was dropped on the city. It was built on the ground where, during the ban on Christianity, every resident in the area was made to trample on an image of either Jesus Christ or Mary, and if they showed signs of relutance, or refused to step on the image they were identified as Christians (brilliant detection system eh?!) - if they didn't abandon their faith, they were tortured or executed, and apparently some were even chucked into the nearby volcano!!!

Oura church looks quite nice from the outside...but not so striking from the inside.

Compared to the Oura church which was located closer to shops and other attractions, Urakami Cathedral was quieter, and I thought it had a lot more character and charm to it. The hall was bigger and broader, the stained glass was more colourful and interesting. I walked in and saw an elderly man and woman cleaning the pews and vacuuming the carpet with great care and attention. I felt that same feeling of peace and tranquility that I often get inside churches back at home. It was really refreshing and nice to feel like you had stepped out of Japan for a little bit. Whilst you had to pay to enter the 'Oura church' (which was over-priced if you ask me!) you didn't have to pay to enter the Urakami cathedral - so I decided to buy a little brochure and postcard from a nice eldery man at the reception desk. He told us (as many people often do when we're on holiday) that he was relieved we could speak some Japanese, and told us about a smaller chapel at the side of the cathedral. Inside this chapel was a large alter and in the centre was a very bruised and disifigured head. It When the Atomic bomb was dropped, quite near to the Cathedral, the Cathedral was completely destroyed, and 30 of its worshipers and two priests were inside the church at the time. When people returned to search through the rubble after the bomb - somebody found a head of a statue of the Virgin Mary still in tact, and when the Cathedral was rebuilt, the head has since been kept there as a reminder of the tragic incident, as well as for others to pray to. The catherdral had a load of interesting history!

Urakami Cathedral

So enough about churches, Nagasaki has one of the biggest Chinese communities in Japan too, and I think Nagasaki's Chinatown is better than Yokohama's! Really cool Chinese-imitation design buildings, gorgeous aromas of Chinese food and we enjoyed the local delicacy 'Champon' which is actually a strange noodle fusion of Chinese, Japanese, Korean and who knows what else influence. It was originally just a cheap dish to satisfy the tastes of Chinese scholars who came over to study, but in Japan EVERY place needs a '名物' or a speciality. Usually you have a famous food/dish, famous drink and famous reason to visit! And everybody goes specifically to do, eat or drink those things. It's very easy to 'do as the Japanese do' and have an urge to do all the things the Japanese recommend you do in a certain place!

Chinatown was really grand and colourful

We also met a few Nagasaki ALTs, which is always interesting to see the differences between ALT communities, and after a few drinks, a bit of pool and of course Karaoke..we stayed up a bit too late, and had about 4 hours sleep before we had to get up very early in time for our next part of the trip - even FURTHER down south!

The Nagasaki Peace Park and museum was a little bit nicer than Hiroshima, only because it wasn't crowded at all and a lot more calm and sombre.

IYA!

I found this bizarre touristy mutation where you could apparently pray to a giant piece of sponge cake called 'Casutera' - this is the mascot of Nagasaki.

We went a bit crazy while at the observation deck on the mountain, perhaps over our excitement of how awesome Nagasaki was. And we attracted the attention of some other Japanese folk who wanted to take part in our crazy shenanigans!