Japan - Kyushu Island. Nagasaki & Kumamoto

Sunday 1 June

Today we fly to Nagasaki so we were up at 8:00 but didn’t have to rush as the shuttle bus didn’t leave for the airport until 10:00 and the hotel didn’t provide breakfast. Having paid $200 for the room we expected breakfast to be included. Not to worry, as the flight was for two hours over lunch time we expected a snack similar to that provided on Qantas domestic flights, wrong again! By the time we arrived at the hotel we were rather hungry as the last meal we had was on the flight from London over 26 hours before.

Our hotel in Nagasaki is rather “squeezy” and we have to put one suitcase in front of the door as there isn’t any other floor space. Like most Japanese hotels and European ones the room is overheated and the duvet (doona) seems to be winter weight so we have to pull it out and use the cover only.

Monday 2 June

Up and out by 9:00 to be greeted by steady rain but at least it wasn’t cold. We caught the very old tram, to Matsuyama about 2 ½ km away and the fare was only 100 yen ($1). It doesn’t matter if you travel one stop or to the end of the line the fare is the same.

Walking from the tram stop we arrived the “Atomic Bomb Hypocentre” park which is directly beneath the point the bomb exploded and this is marked by a simple black marble column. A few metres from the column is part of one of the spires from Urakami Cathedral which has been reconstructed as a memorial to those who died in the old cathedral when it collapsed from the blast. In several places in the park hang many strings of a thousand cranes which are made by school children as a memorial to those who died in the two atomic explosions.

This park, unlike the one at Hiroshima doesn’t have an eternal flame or peace bell and is very simple, however there are some memorials just outside the park dedicated to various groups who died in the blast, these are also decorated with strings of cranes.

We had thought we had seen it all when it comes to park maintenance in Japan, picking up pine needles with large bamboo tweezers was the best, but today that was topped. Running past the park is a small rock lined river and workers were in the river with bamboo brooms sweeping its bed, at least they didn’t have to hose it down.

Our next visit was to the Atomic Bomb Museum which contains many photographs of Nagasaki before and after the blast, many of these photographs show very graphic scenes of victims and as they say on the news, “the following photos may prove distressing”., there were also many film clips taken in the days following the blast. Throughout the museum there are also displays of items recovered after the blast some not for the squeamish.

From the museum we walked to the adjoining Nagasaki National Peace Memorial Hall which is designed as a shrine to those many killed in the blast or who died as a result of the effects in subsequent years; all the names of those who died including allied prisoners of war are recorded in special journals. On the roof and throughout the hall are many pools and water walls in remembrance of the thousands of people who were calling for water to quench their thirst when they died.

We then retraced our steps back past the Hypocentre Park and on to the Peace Park; this park is dominated at one end by the large Nagasaki Peace Statue of a man with one arm outstretched symbolising “ Peace” the other pointing to the sky and the threat of nuclear weapons, at the other end is a large fountain and pool also to remind people of the thirst of the bomb victims. Scattered throughout the park are many statues and memorials, gifts from many countries and organisations around the world, all have a common plea, that there are no more atomic attacks.

The rebuilt Urakami Cathedral was our next visit, when the original brick church was completed in the early 1900s, after thirty years construction, it was the largest church in the East but the blast took less than three minutes to destroy it as it was only about 800 m from the epicentre. Many of the stone statues on a rebuilt section of the church and relics are displayed in the museum and part of a wall with columns and statues has been rebuilt in the church garden. Down the slope from the church, beside a stream, lies part of the spire and belfry which has been left where it fell.

The rain has not let up all day and as we left the hotel with only our umbrellas and not our waterproofs we were a little damp but as we visit countries to meet people and see the sites we aren’t put off by the weather. Squelching on we arrived at the “one legged” Torii gate. A Tori gate is at the entrance to a Shinto Shrine and consists of two uprights with usually two cross bars; these are made of stone or timber. One leg of this stone gate was blown away in the blast but the other remains standing with half of one cross bar still in place, this had been rotated 180 degrees. The gate has been left as another memorial to victims of the blast.

As is was after 4:00 and we decided that we needed to dry off we headed for a tram stop and returned to our room to apply a hair dryer to our packs, sneakers, camera cases, umbrellas and anything else needing drying. Let’s hope that tomorrow is a little finer.

Tuesday 3 June

When we looked out the window this morning people were walking with their umbrellas up but a short time after we left the hotel the rain stopped.

Our first visit this morning was to the memorial commemorating the martyrdom of 26 Christians in 1597. The Shogun who was concerned with the spread and influence of Christianity introduced by the Portuguese declared it illegal and punishable by death, many ignored his edict and he ordered 6 friars and 20 Japanese to be crucified, three boys were aged 12 and 13.

From the site of the crucifixion we could see a temple of a different religion, it features the 18 m high figure of the goddess Kannon standing on the back of a large turtle which is the temple building. This is a replacement for the original which was destroyed by the A-bomb fire.

From the temple we walked down past the Kanzen-Ji which has the largest camphor tree in Nagasaki, this tree apart from the tips of its branches is totally wrapped in Hessian with its leaves coming out from the folds of Hessian, further down the hill we arrived at the Nagasaki Museum of History and Culture.

The museum deals with the period from the arrival of the Portuguese, their subsequent expulsion and the later arrival of the Dutch and the interaction between these western traders and the Japanese. To control their influence and to restrict their contact with the Japanese the Shogun ordered a fan shaped artificial island, Dejima, to be built and ordered that the Japanese were not allowed on this island and the Westerners were not to leave except for contact with officials, their Japanese trading partners and to load an unload their ship.

The museum provides an audio unit which gives a detailed explanation of the exhibits and a comprehensive coverage of the events of the times, the activities and duties of the Nagasaki Magistrates were also covered, to reinforce this explanation a 3D film about one year in the magistrate’s life is screened. The museum is built on the site of the old magistrate’s office and residence and using old plans and drawings the museum has re-constructed this building. After several hours we left with a better understanding of Japan’s first contact with Europeans.

From the museum we continued to walk down hill until we came to the Nakajima River, which is actually a man made canal dating back to the 1500s, the river is stocked with colourful Koi Carp and crossed at many points by stone arch bridges. The most famous, Magane – Bashi otherwise known as Spectacles Bridge, is the oldest stone bridge in Japan built in 1634. The bridge is a double arch and received its name from the arches and their reflection in the water meeting to give the appearance of a pair of spectacles. The pathway beside this section of the river is lined with hundreds of pots of Hydrangeas, the floral emblem of Nagasaki.

Following the river towards its mouth we arrived at the site of Dejima Island which is now totally surrounded by reclaimed land and buildings but because of its importance in Japanese history much of its perimeter has been excavated to expose the sea walls and a replica of a large part of the Dutch village has been built. It is the government’s intention to totally rebuild the village and excavate the land around it so that it once again becomes an island.

Beside this village is a very simple steel bridge over the river which is the oldest steel bridge in Japan, the components were imported from the US and put together by a Japanese company. It is interesting that this river is spanned by the oldest stone and steel bridges in Japan, both still in use.

Walking back towards the railway station we were accosted by groups of school students with their English work books, their teacher had set them a series of questions to ask foreigners and spaces to write their replies, they all had trouble with the word foreigner but otherwise their pronunciation was quiet good. One of the questions was “How old are you?” to which Ann replied “It is rude to ask a lady’s age” but answered anyway. This was written in their work book so I wonder what the teacher will make of her reply. Typically we weren’t allowed to “escape” until many photos were taken.

Nearly eight hours after leaving the hotel and about 200 m from the door it started raining again, we mistimed our site-seeing by a couple of minutes.

Wednesday 4 June

The rain has cleared but it has been replaced by humidity, but not the energy sapping heat that we experienced during a previous visit to Japan.

Today we continue on our discovery of early European days in Japan and our first stop was to Thomas Glover’s Gardens, two tram rides from the hotel but only one fare. In Nagasaki where tram lines intersect and you want to change trams, when paying on the first tram you ask the driver for a “Noritsugi” a transfer ticket, which can be used on the second tram. Really good value as a single journey only costs 100 Yen.

While waiting at the tram stop we saw our first modern “bendy” tram, not as long as the European or Melbourne ones but a big improvement from other trams on the Nagasaki system. I don’t know if any trams survived the A-blast but they look ancient enough to have been built prior to WW2. The other interesting feature of the trams is, they don’t have a bell as in Melbourne but a very loud truck style horn which gave us quite a fright the first time one blasted beside us.

From the tram stop we walked to an inclined lift which travelled up a steep slope, we rode to the fifth level and walked along a path to another lift, vertical this time, and exited at the third level. These lifts must make life so much easier for the elderly residents in the area and make it easy for the visitors to Glover’s Gardens.

Thomas Glover arrived in Japan in 1851 at the age of 21 and after marrying a Japanese lady built his house on 12 acres of land high on the hill overlooking the harbour. Glover was instrumental in introducing much modern science and technology into Japan, the first steam train and telephone and he constructed the first tarred road and built the first tennis court. He also opened the first modern colliery and brewery, Kirin Beer and was a director of Mitsubishi Engineering; he assisted many young Japanese to go overseas to study. Much of this occurred while the Shogun was still ruling and he worked with many Japanese to restore the Emperor to power and aided him in his efforts to modernise Japan.

Some years ago the Nagasaki Prefecture realised the importance of the remaining old European buildings, and declared them to be worthy of saving and later the Japanese Government declared them to be of National importance. Today seven of the old residences have been dismantled and rebuilt in Glover’s Gardens together with their furniture and many photos of the early days. Glover’s home also remains and is the oldest wooden western style building in Japan, in the garden beside the house is a large 300 year old Cycad (Sago Palm) this was a gift to Glover from a local Japanese Lord with whom he had a close association.

While walking through the gardens and walking down the hill past the Oura Catholic Church, built in 1864 and the oldest church in Japan and later while walking up Hollander Slope past several other old western style buildings, we wondered how they had survived the A-blast unscathed but as they are about 4 ½ km from the epicentre they must have been outside the area of total destruction, so some of the Japanese – European early history remains.

Hollander Slope, a street where westerners lived, was so named because the residents of Nagasaki called all Europeans, Hollanders, the Dutch being the only foreigners allowed in Japan for nearly 200 years so any western person was later called a Hollander.

After three days in Nagasaki we have been surprised with the few Westerners we have seen given the city’s importance in Japanese – European history and world events, the most in one day were four people, I don’t think we have seen so few in all our visits to Japan.

Tomorrow we move on and we have probably seen all the areas and exhibits associated with early European days, together with the places associated with that more modern event that most people in the world pray will never happen again.

Thursday 5 June

While walking to the station to catch the train to Kumamoto, we noticed a display detailing the areas affected by the bomb; this showed the blast, heat and radiation destruction areas and the old western zone we visited avoided all the effects from the bomb, this display provided an answer to yesterday’s question.

The island of Kyushu is very mountainous and during the first hour of our journey we spent more time in tunnels and deep cuttings than in the open and then the train followed the coastline as it was the flattest part in the area. After we changed trains at Tosu the country remained hilly but with many small villages and little terraced rice paddies, further on the country opened up with large area of cereal and potato crops which were being harvested. We then moved into a more intensive area of agriculture with plastic tunnel greenhouses, there were so many that with the sun shining on them it looked like a large inland sea.

Another thing we have noticed in the last few days is the number of Loquat trees in gardens and small orchards most have paper bags over the fruit, also the fruit is available in shops, packaged and without the seeds.

As we left Nagasaki, along side the railway line was what appeared to be an elevated roadway under construction but then we realised there weren’t any ramps from the roadway so it must be a elevated rail line, probably for a Shinkansen, “Bullet Train”. This track continued through to Tosu and on to Kumamoto.

An hour and a half after leaving Nagasaki we arrived at Kumomoto and after a visit to the tourist information office we checked into our hotel and decided to have a quiet afternoon.

Friday 6 June

Another pleasant day though slightly humid as we set off to visit Kumamoto’s main attraction its castle using the city’s tram system, the trams in Kumamoto appears as ancient as those in Nagasaki and cost 150 Yen a trip. The Kumamoto Castle, also know as Ginkgo Castle because of the giant Ginkgo tree growing in the grounds is designated one of the three most significant castles in Japan. Construction started in 1601and took six years to complete, the main tower has six stories and a basement and rises 30 m above the massive stone walls at its base, the smaller tower has four stories and a basement and is about 19 m above the base. The original castle grounds had an enclosed area of 980,000 square metres and the wall around its perimeter was 5.3 km long. When we looked at the walls, the size of the stones, the symmetry of the upward curves and the sharp edges at the corners is amazing, considering they were built 400 years ago without the aid of any modern tools. To complete this engineering masterpiece Kato Kiyomasa, the lord who built the castle, also diverted the river so it would run along one side further enhancing the castle’s defences.

In the castle grounds has been built a reproduction of the Hon-Maru Goten Grand Hall which was the Lord of the Castle’s Palace using all the old skills, some of the beams were tree trunks 600 mm in diameter with precise joints that would be expected from a skilled cabinet maker not on a piece of timber the size of a log. In one of the rooms a video was showing which followed the construction and the various craftsmen making components for the palace, from rice screens, engraving, with fine chisels delicate metal plates for covering nails and ceiling timber corners. It also showed artist covering rice paper panels with gold leaf and painting the most beautiful scenes and applying lacquer and polishing exposed ceiling beams. The completed building is a modern day work of art using all the ancient skill.

From the castle we walked past some of the huge external walls of the castle to the former residence of Hosokawa Gyobu. The Hosokawa clan was established by a younger brother of the Lord of the castle and district and retained power until the Meiji restoration, in the 1870s. This was the home of the head of the clan and it contains 24 rooms covering an area of 990 square metres, he certainly lived in great style and to complete his comfort his children lived in another building.

After visiting the Samurai residence we strolled back through the various parks which were inside the walls and probably in he early days contained many buildings. In one of the parks we watched an elderly man with a wooden pinning top, about the size of a bread and butter plate, with a metal spindle with a small metal ball on its end. This he spun around on a cord in the style of a Diablo using its spindle, looping it around his body, skipping over it and throwing it up and catching it on the cord. He also caught the top on his forearm were it spun on its spindle, transferred it to his hand, on to his foot and flicked it up and caught it on the cord again, a very skilled display.

When we arrived back at the hotel the receptionist gave Ann a key for the Ladies Radium Bath and apologised for not giving it to her when we checked in. After dinner we decided to check out the bath rooms which are typical Japanese with a row of stools to sit on and bowls for washing and when you are clean you can enter the bath. The bath was almost big enough to do laps with water running in constantly and very hot and the room is almost like a sauna, an improvement in this bath room to some others we have been in, was the change and drying room is air conditioned so we could cool down after our bath.

Saturday 7 June

Up early to catch the train to Aso a small town situated in the caldera of Mt Aso. Leaving Kumamoto station we noticed that the over head track under construction continued but veered away just before our line became a single track, we wondered where it was heading.

Over the past 30 million years Mt Aso was an active volcano and it is estimated that its last “big bang” was around 100,000 years ago and it must have been a good one as it left a caldera 128 km in circumference which is the largest active caldera in the world. It is now filled with towns, villages, farms, trains and tourists.

Within the outer rim are five smaller mountains one of which, Naka-Dake, is the active volcano, its last major eruption was in 1993 but the crater area is frequently closed due to toxic gas emissions however today wasn’t one of them.

From Aso we caught the bus up to the area just below the active crater and a few kilometres before we arrived the bus driver stopped for five minutes so we could get out to view the perfectly shaped extinct volcano Kome-Zuka, known as “rice mound” this volcano is totally covered in grass.

At the bus terminal we caught the cable car to the crater of Naka-Dake which is filled with a milky blue lake with what appears to be lumps of sulphur floating in it, from the lake and around its perimeter smoke and steam plumes are emitting. The crater looks quite benign and pretty but over the last 30 years several tourist have been killed when it erupted suddenly so now all around the crater are large concrete “bomb shelters”.

From this crater we walked around to one of its old craters and continued on across a black volcanic sand plain and climbed up onto a ridge leading to the foot of Mt. Naka-Dake, but on viewing the very steep rock strewn slope which finishes at the ridge on the summit, around 1400 m, we decided to lunch at the bottom and watch the many Japanese take their life in their hands ascending and descending this rugged terrain.

Catching the cable car back to cable-car station we set off to walk the 3 ½ km pathway to the Volcano Museum. The pathway took us through a lot of local vegetation, one predominant plant is a pink native azalea which has almost finished flowering, and the mountains must look wonderful when the plants covering their slopes are in flower.

We started our visit to the museum in a seven screen theatre which showed a very graphic film of eruptions of Naka-Dake and wonderful film shots taken from a helicopter flying over the area and also film of local festivals and village activities. Also in the museum is a large screen and several monitors showing live shots from the crater, the cameras providing these can be zoomed in and out and panned from side to side with controls at the monitor. The exhibition room contains specimens of rocks and laver from the various volcanos in the area and detailed descriptions of the formation of volcanos with working models and videos of volcanos around the world.

We caught the bus from outside the museum for the trip back to the station, passing again thousands of hectares of grassland with cattle grazing. These cattle are put out in spring and must belong to many farmers as they have large numbers freeze branded on their middles and I presume the first number is the farmer’s number followed by a dash and then another number, eg 1-134.

The train ride to and from Aso is interesting in that most of the journey is along a single track with passing track at the stations, around half way into the ride after stopping at a station the train reversed for around a kilometre before resuming the journey on a different line. The ride back to Kumamoto went very quickly as I slept for a large part of the journey, I’m glad I saw the scenery on the way out.

After dinner we again enjoyed a Japanese bath, very relaxing.