Nagasaki - A city of windmills (figuratively...)

I've been a bit lax in updating this recently, but it's simply because I've been so busy travelling! :D

Around 2 or 3 weeks ago I went on a trip to Nagasaki with another JET from my prefecture, and was later met by another JET. My friend had been to Nagasaki I think around 3 times before and was quick to say that Nagasaki is her favourite city in Japan, so I had high hopes for Nagasaki. And I'm pleased to report that it lived up to expectations!

This might be because Nagasaki is easily the most European influenced city in Japan, due to its rich history of Dutch, Scottish, English and other foreign travellers making a life for themselves there centuries ago. I miss Europe pretty much all the time, and am basically head over heels with European architecture, so it was no wonder that Nagasaki won me over within just a couple of hours. There was even a cathedral in Nagasaki which could only have been inspired by Gaudi's architecture in Barcelona.

This is an example of Gaudi architecture in Barcelona

Nagasaki is a port city which sprawls up onto the surrounding hills. It may sound odd, but hilly cities is definitely something that I have missed loads here in Japan, probably because my own city, Edinburgh, is built on 7 hills. There was a sense of pride in the city and very little evidence of the atomic bomb tragedy that occurred in Nagasaki in 1945, apart from the Peace Park and Museum which was the first place we visited when we arrived. The Peace Park and Museum however, didn't seem to be quite up to par with the one in Hiroshima, but it is somewhere that you absolutely have to go if you visit Nagasaki.

Anyway here is the Peace Park:

I actually have no idea of the significance of this guy...

To me, Nagasaki was on par with Kyoto when it came to beauty. But I preferred it to Kyoto simply because of the lack of crowds. It was filled with beautiful shrines like these ones, which probably would have drawn quite large crowds in Kyoto.

We also stumbled across a Japanese wedding at this temple

At one particular shrine, I had the misfortune of picking out a bad luck fortune. And this one was actually written in English, so the words had more of an effect on me. I found it comical though, particularly when my friend got the worst luck fortune which essentially said "Death will come soon". And this was after my other friend had said "Oh, they'll probably have nicer fortunes for tourists." Haha, I think not. They probably loved watching the horrified expressions on our faces as we read our fortunes ;)

This was my "fortune", but definitely nowhere near as bad as my friends'

Aside from the Peace Park, there are loads of other attractions worth visiting in Nagasaki. Oddly enough, there is an both an area with old Dutch style houses and another area up in the hills called Glover Gardens, named after a Scot who lived there centuries ago. Despite the Scottish roots though, the houses in Glover Gardens had a strangely Southern feel to them (as in Gone With The Wind sort of South...)

The view from Glover Gardens was also phenomenal by the way.

I also had this insanely cool cappuccino with Thomas Glover's face on it!

And if Nagasaki doesn't seem culturally diverse enough, there was even a Chinatown with the most delicious melt-in-your-mouth nikuman that I have ever eaten. In case you don't know, nikuman is a type of bready dumpling with meat in the middle.

Nagasaki also seemed to have an abundance of heart-shaped stones. Like this one!

My personal favourite though was at this bridge known as Spectacles Bridge - because the shape of the bridge reflected in the water looks like a pair of spectacles, obviously!

That's me, doing the peace sign because I don't know what else to do with my hands...

Walking around this river, my head felt utterly confused as I felt like I must be walking around a Dutch canal, rather than on the other side of the world in Japan. However, just a short walk away there was a street literally just lined with Japanese shrines, just in case you were in any doubt as to what country you were in.

The people of Nagasaki proved just as interesting and colourful as the city they live in. Our first night, my friend and I, running away from an obnoxiously drunk old Japanese man who kept shifting closer and closer to us on his barstool, stumbled into a charming little wine bar with a very friendly bartender who was willing to put up with my terrible attempts at speaking Japanese.

On our way home, we encountered the infamous "Windmill Guy". We were standing at traffic lights waiting to cross, admittedly a bit drunk, when a man on the other side starting waving his arms in circles as if he was a windmill. At first we thought he was just drunk and trying to make us, the token gaijin, laugh. But when the light changed he didn't even cross, but still stayed there, honest to God pretending to be a windmill. Two Japanese guys who had been standing behind us at the traffic lights decided to to literally run head first into Windmill Guy and head butt him in the stomach. He fell to the ground still waving his arms, but thankfully alright. Now if that isn't dedication to the Dutch roots of Nagasaki then I don't know what is.

My verdict: Nagasaki is a little awkward to get to as it is tucked away on a peninsula on Kyushu, the southernmost island out of the 4 main Japanese islands. However, if you are ever in Kyushu then definitely don't give it a miss!

I'm hoping to write about all the cherry blossoms and hanami in Japan and of course my epic trip to Tokyo next!