We fell in love with Nagasaki

What comes into your mind when you hear of Nagasaki?

For me it reminds me of what I studied during the history class when I was a middle schooler, it was where the atomic bombing took place on 9 August 1945. Easy to remember as my birthday is on 9th of August too.

Nagasaki is only 2 hour away by train from Fukuoka. If I only have one word to describe Nagasaki, I'd choose historical. Not only because of the atomic bomb but it's a port city which is rich of mixture between Asian and Western cultures. Can be easily seen from the architecture of the buildings there :)

A dragon overlooking Nagasaki city from the station

It was cloudy when I was there and it somehow added vintage feeling. I felt like I was teleported back to the 1950s!

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We had Japanese lunch at a restaurant in a mall right next to the station. I can't recall the name of the restaurant but definitely one of the best meals we had there! :D

Yaya's seafood ochazuke

Mine! I loved this

It came with a sashimi set. Very filling and yummy!

Sheng's pretty lunch set

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After lunch, we took the tram to go to our first direction; Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum.

We bought a one day pass tram ride :D

A thousand cranes. 

Loving the architecture of the museum

us

The clock was stopped at 11:02 when the bombing took place

and I started to tear up because of this. A very strong photograph of a boy carrying his dead little sister.  If you see closer the boy was tearing while bitting his lips.

“The Boy Standing by the Crematory in Nagasaki” by Joe O’Donnell. The photographer was interviewed by a certain Seiko Ueda - “I came in from Sasebo to Nagasaki and looked around from a hill. Men walking with white masks caught my attention. The men were working besides a big hole of about 60cm deep. They were putting the corpses piled up on a wagon into the hole with burning lime
. Then I saw a boy of around ten years old walking toward them. 

He had his little brother baby strapped on his back. In those days, it was quite common in Japan to see young boys carrying their little brother or sister on their back while playing in the field.
 But this boy wasn’t here to play. He had a very important duty to come to this crematory. 
You could see it on his face. And he was barefoot. 

The boy came to the edge of the crematory. His face was stiff and his eyes were bracing for an ordeal. The baby on his back looked deep asleep and the head was bent backward. The boy stood there for five or ten minutes. Then the men with the white masks came towards him and started to untie the straps. At this moment, I realized that this baby brother he was carrying was dead. 
The men gently held the baby’s arms and legs and slowly put him into the hole where the hot stones are laid. I could hear the steaming sound of the baby’s flesh burning. Then a gleaming red flare danced up in the air. The bright red color like the sunset was reflecting on the yet tender boy’s cheek as he stood there straight and still. That moment, I realized that the boy was biting his lip and it was bleeding. He was biting hard as he gazed his little brother in flames. 
When the flames had calmed down, the boy turned on his heels and left the place silently.”

The peace statue at Peace park nearby

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The next destination was Glover Garden.
A park which was made by a Scottish merchant who came to trade in Japan in mid 1800s.

Nagasaki is just beautiful in its way

Castella! Nagasaki speciality :D

One of the oldest catholic church in Japan, Oura church.

Mixture between east and west in furnitures

Reminds me of South East Asia old houses at the same time

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Next, after looking at the Western influence in Nagasaki, we headed to Chinatown to see the Chinese's influence.

Confucius shrine, too bad it was already closed when we reached there.

terror call? lol

Nagasaki Chanpon, another speciality of Nagasaki

♥A