Day 9 | Nagasaki

Monday 21 October, 2024

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A rest day in Nagasaki! We start the day with some Yakult, another one of the free offerings at our hotel.

We have put together our own walking tour for the day and start by heading down towards Nagasaki Dejima Wharf.

We make a quick stop into Attic Coffee 2nd, a nice little cafe by the water.

They also process their own coffee beans on the premise so you know the coffee must be good.

A little further around the wharf is Nagasaki Seaside Park.

It’s a lovely park by the water where we see a few locals and tourists relaxing.

It’s a Monday so there aren’t many people here at the moment.

We head back up the main drag to Nobister for lunch, which is one of a few vegetarian places we have found on the map.

It’s a cute narrow eatery that turns into a bar at night. We order the Japanese curry and a the rice ball set. The food is great and very reasonably priced.

After lunch we wander to Hamamachi Arcade. We did walk through the area last night but everything had already closed as it was quite late. During the day the shops are buzzing and there is a bit more human traffic.

We continue on along the canal, which reminds us of Cheonggyecheon in Seoul, only not as built up.

There are a few people wandering by the water and some girls feeding the fish.

This is also home to the Megane Bridge, which is known for looking like a pair of glasses on a clear day.

Next stop is Nagasaki Park where they have a small animal zoo.

You can see animals including monkeys, birds, goats, peacocks amongst others. Like this chilled out meerkat below.

There are vending machine where you can buy food to feed the animals.

Cheye stops to talk to the parrot but it must only speak Japanese.

A bit further into the park is Suwa Shrine.

There are many shrines throughout Nagasaki (and Japan in general) but Suwa Shrine is the major Shinto shrine of Nagasaki.

On the other side of the park is ‘Unusual Road’. It’s a very interesting road consisting of switchbacks and trees growing along the centre. It’s interesting seeing cars weaving around them as they descend.

As we ascend Unusual Road you can see amazing views of Nagasaki. We notice the it’s still very green despite being the middle of Autumn when the leaves should be orange and starting to fall. We’ve heard quite a few people saying that Summer seems to be getting longer in both Japan and South Korea.

We arrive at Tateyama Park where you are supoosed it get even better views from the viewing point at the top, however when we get there we notice many trees obstructing the view. We reckon they were planted many years ago and now sit there because they can’t be cut down. So just a note if you are heading up there and want photos, make sure you take them on the way up or down.

We continue on another 3km, descending many stairs around the local neighbourhood and eventually onto the main road.

Nagasaki was destroyed by an atomic bomb back in 1945 so the Atomic Bomb Hypocentre Park is an important place to visit whether you’re a visitor or a local.

There are a lot of school groups having a history excursion at the park. The Hypocentre Monument marks the point where the bomb exploded 500m above the ground.

A block away is the Peace Park, where you can find the Peace Fountain.

A short walk further through the nicely maintained park is the Peace Monument, a glorious 10m tall bronze statue erected on the 10th anniversary of the bomb in 1955.

We’ve done quite a bit of walking (around 10km) so we make our way back to one of the malls we passed by earlier, Plat Mall. There’s a big grocery store and a bakery so we make a quick rest stop to recharge.

About a kilometre from the mall is an even bigger mall, Cocowalk.

You’ll know it when you see the giant ferris wheel outside.

Inside are seven levels of shops, including a Tatsuya books store, one of the nicest looking bookstores I’ve seen. But we continue on to the Gigo arcade.

On the way back to our hotel we suss out the bus terminal where we will be catching the bus tomorrow. We were originally going to cycle from Nagasaki to Kumamoto, however the forecast has 85% chance of rain so we have booked the bus instead and save ourselves a day of misery.

We have have a few massive days of hills coming up this week and have decided to make use of the Yamato luggage service so we can cycle with minimal gear. We’ve heard about these services being very popular in Japan but have never used them before. People will often send their luggage to their next stop or hotel to save themselves having to carry it around. You can send them from any of the convenience stores that have the ‘kuro neko’ logo (a black cat on a yellow background) and prices as very reasonable. We had three panniers which cost only ¥1,420 each. I managed to squeeze my two panniers into one with a few Tetris skills.

Once back at the hotel, Belinda makes use of the onsen (very relaxing) while Cheye watched the baseball (very dramatic). For dinner we had Yonaki noodles, another free service provided by the hotel.

Between the noodles, ice pops and Yakult we’ve barely needed to make use of the konbini, which is located on the ground floor of the hotel.

With minimal stuff to carry, there’s not much packing needed tonight. We’re just hoping the rain holds out for long enough in the morning so we can make our way to the bus terminal.

Next post: Day 10 | Nagasaki to Kumamoto