Japan Vacation: Nagasaki

We boarded the train early Thursday morning and headed to Nagasaki. The trains we have taken are all very comfortable. Kai enjoys riding them as he can watch movies on his iPad. And it gives all of us a chance to rest up, which is particularly nice when we have an early start to the day.

Nagasaki is where the first Europeans came to Japan. We visited the Dejima Museum, site of one of the early Dutch trading posts when Japan first opened up to outsiders.

For lunch, most of us had toruko rice which is a Nagasaki specialty. It is an eclectic mix of spaghetti, tonkatsu (fried pork), and curry rice, which probably is a result of the European influence there. Kai especially enjoyed it.

It was a rainy day in Nagasaki, but we carried on. After lunch, we went to Glover Garden.

The Glover House is the oldest western-style house in Japan, dating back to the late 19th century.

Thomas Glover was a Scotsman who came to Japan when he was 21, and had much business success including introducing beer to Japan and forming the company that is now Kirin Beer.

Later in the afternoon, we went to the Nagasaki Peace Park that honors the victims of the second atomic bomb explosion.

Dinner that night was Nagasaki Champon, a Chinese noodle dish mixed with seafood, another specialty of the area.

Most of the others were tired from all of our travels, and Kai just wanted to stay in the hotel to use the iPad, but my wife and I went out after dinner to ride the Nagasaki Ropeway to the top of Mount Inasa for a great night view of the city. They bill it as the “Ten Million Dollar Night View.”

It is kind of hard to believe that our vacation is winding down. We only have one more destination before we return to Tokyo to catch our flight home.