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As soon as we started to walk away from the ryokan we were surprised to see a HUGE FACE that had appeared overnight at the shrine near our hotel. It was really big. I guess today must be huge face festival day or something. We walked down to have a look and saw people still working on painting it. There was a shinto wedding at the shrine as well and we had a sticky beak watching them take photos etc. We walked back to Canal City and looked at some shops but none as interesting as the big face.
Our train was at 12:20 and was a limited express to Nagasaki. We were there in good time but Hakata station is very confusing since it has a lot of construction and the people there are a bit strange and we can’t understand them at all. It was a bit hard, but we got some lunch to eat on the train and managed to get away. The train trip went along the coast and near mysterious misty mountains. It was very nice.
In Nagasaki we immediately saw Kosuke and his dad and were greeted enthusiastically. We all got in the car and they took us to see a few things in Nagasaki. The focus of our tour was Nagasaki’s connection with the West as the first international trading city in Japan. We visited Dejima which was an island enclave for Dutch traders while Japan was under self-imposed isolation. Dejima *used* to be an island but at some point in the early 20th century they filled in a lot of the harbour and covered it up, then it was excavated years later.
Our next stop was Orandazakka, a hill which had some historical French houses and then Glover garden, which was the site of a historical house built by a Scottish man called Glover in the 1860s. Glover garden had spectacular views of Nagasaki harbour including a huge bridge and dry docks and other cool stuff. Awesome.
After the garden, Kosuke and his dad Yuuji took us to their place which is outside of Nagasaki. All the local towns seem to be connected by tunnels through the mountains. Kosuke’s family was there, mother, Keiko, grandmother Sue (Su-eh) and 16-yar-old sister Mai. We all had dinner together in their lovely house and we got to listen to and speak a lot of Japanese which was fun but tiring. A serious matter was Sue retelling her experience of the atomic bomb – she was 27kms away so wasn’t hurt and apparently hasn’t suffered terrible cancers or anything but she felt the huge winds blowing trees around saw the horrible aftermath.
After dinner we all sat in the living room with our feet under the Kotatsu and looked at photos, then we watched TV. The family like music shows and they had some recorded that we could all watch.
