Japan.It's Bloomin marvellous.

[drron]

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The last photos demonstrate another reason for this garden's status-they have got their wisteria to grow upwards.

 

[drron]

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[drron]

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It was now off to the Date museum where we got our first look at the castle-

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The lady of the manor was carried around in this.

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[drron]

The museum garden-

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Now we began the climb up to the castle looking out for the flora-

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[drron]

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Getting to the top there were great views-

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You could enter the castle and climbing to the top gave even better views.

 

[drron]

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I had some free time before the bus picked us up so wandered the neighbourhood and found a shopping street.Business was not good-

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The one café open had that different use of scallop shells.
After lunch we set sail for Nagasaki.Both of us had a good sleep that afternoon.

 

[love_the_life]

Apart from the gardens which are always fantastic, those screens are gorgeous.

 

[drron]

So the next morning as we finished breakfast we steamed into Nagasaki.A surprise was waiting-

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One of the Costa line ships with 3000 Chinese passengers.

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0900 and we were off to the Atomic Bomb museum,Epicentre park and Peace park.

 

[drron]

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Folding a thousand paper cranes has long been part of Japanese culture symbolising good luck and often for example given to brides.A young girl who survived the Hiroshima bomb was told of this legend.She apparently folded 1400 cranes but unfortunately died of Leukeamia at the age of 12.Since then the 1000 cranes have become a symbol of the child victims hence all those you see here and in Hiroshima.

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As we arrived at Epicentre park the Chinese hordes from Costa arrived.I was able to get shots of the memorials there just before they were overrun.

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[drron]

It was then on to Peace Park where there are gifts of various nations to Nagasaki.Sadly none from Australia.There are signs everywhere to not touch or sit on the memorials.I believe the signs were also in Chinese but had no effect.

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[drron]

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The last one is the New Zealand gift.Just after this shot 3 Chinese fellows tried to make it bend a little more.Not surprisingly they had to put a fence around the Chinese gift-

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The remains of a prison just near the epicentre-

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Our guide placing the ship's contribution of cranes.

 

[drron]

Nagasaki was much more restrained than Hiroshima.More like the memories of Hiroshima I have of 32 years ago where history was important to the displays.The only note was like Hiroshima the total number of dead and injured has become the number killed.In Nagasaki's case about 70% of the total casualties were deaths whereas in Hiroshima it was slightly less than 50%.
Before we left Peace Park we just had to have one of these served by a lady at least in her 80s with the icecream shaped like flower and all done by hand.We have no idea what flavour it was-

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A famous survivor.Half the tori gate was left but still stands today.
It was then on to Glover Gardens the residence of A Scot,Thomas Glover.He came to Nagasaki in 1859 working for Jardine Mateson.Two years later he opened his own trading company.He supported the clans opposed to the Shogun and so helped in the Meiji Restoration.The tragic postscript to his story was that his son committed suicide the day after the Nagasaki bomb.

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We had one of those icecreams on the way back-loquat.Delicious.

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[drron]

Good views from the garden-

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What is Puccini doing in Nagasaki.Well Madame Butterfly is set here-

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But not all was beautiful-

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[drron]

As you can see this is not the typical Japanese garden.Western influences abound with lots of colour.Same with the house.There are some Japanese influences though.

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[Jacques Vert]

Thanks for the wonderful trip report drron; especially the comments & photos of Nagasaki.

+1 & I arrived in Hokkaido yesterday and will be in Nagasaki late May. It is an area of special significance to my family but that is another story.

Enjoy the rest of your trip and thanks for the beautiful photos.

JV

 

[love_the_life]

Thanks for the pictures of Nagasaki, drron. They have a special meaning for me. In a previous life I was House Coordinator at quite a large Catholic girls school. I was the first coordinator for Seiwa House which was named after a college in Nagasaki which was founded by the Good Sam nuns. Our house symbol was a crane and one of the first things the Yr 7s learnt each year was to fold a paper crane. After I left a group visited Nagasaki and left cranes at the memorial. I think though that Sasabo Sasaki only managed to fold 644 cranes before her death and it was her classmates who finished them for her.

correction - the 644 cranes is a furphy. drron was totally correct.

 

[drron]

Yes the common myth is that she only managed 644.But having a local guide was invaluable.A few years after her death her parents were interviewed.She had folded 1400 cranes which her parents had kept and showed on TV.The 1000 buried with her were all from her classmates.Our guide blamed the 644 myth on the American book of her life released in 1977.
Her older brother gives speeches of her life and has been leaving some of her paper cranes at various sites including the 9/11 memorial and at Pearl Harbour.

I did find Nagasaki interesting especially the Western involvement and the role it played in Japan's history.

 

[drron]

So the last of the Glover garden and views-

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As usual you exit via the museum and gift shop.A few replica Japanese vessels in the museum.Approriate as Thomas Glover was bankrupt in 1870.Was taken on by a powerful friend to help with his businesses in particular ship building.The fellow was Mr.Iwasaki and his business Mitsubishi.

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A church with a nice little business in the basement.
It was then back to the ship with a nice BBQ lunch on the deck.The ribs in particular were great.
After lunch we decided to go for a walk to Dejima Island-well it was an island but now due to reclamation it is part of Nagasaki.It was an artificial island built to contain foreign traders in the Edo period.It was the only place open to foreigners.The Dutch built a trading post there which lasted from 1641 to 1853.First the port area with lots of restaurants-

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