After a brief visit to South Korea, we are back in Japan. We spent the day in Nagasaki, a port city on the second largest of the four main islands of Japan, Kyushu. Although many people associate Nagasaki with the atomic bombing of 1945, the city and its surroundings tell a much longer story. Going back to the days of European merchants for whom the city acted as a gateway into Japan. And even further back the story goes. Nagasaki is full of life.
The morning was spent visiting the Peace Museum and Park where we could learn about what happened on that fateful summer’s day of 1945 from the local’s perspective. We walked past the hypocenter to a beautiful memorial garden that houses statues from all over the world. Some of us visited the Oura Church, Japan’s oldest existing wooden church and evidence of the Portuguese influence on the city. In the afternoon, we visited the former Dutch trading post of Dejima to learn more about the early bridge between Europe and Japan. We learned that some things that are very popular in Japan today were introduced to Japan by the Dutch merchants, Badminton being one example. Our next visit is to Kagoshima on the same beautiful island of Kyushu.
