We are headed for Nagasaki today so got the 8am bullet train for the couple hours journeyto arrive mid morning and after arriving dropped our bags off at the hotel and then headed to the atomonic bomb site and museum.
Nagasaki is the largest city of Nagasaki Perfecture on the island of Kyushu Japan. It became a centre of Portuguese and Dutch influence in the 16th through to the 19th centuries. Part of Nagasaki was home to a major Imperial Japanese Navy base during the First sino-Japanese War and Russo- Japanese War. Its name means "long cape".
During World War 2, the American Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki made Nagasaki the second and, to date, last city in the world to experience a Nuclear attack.
On the day of the nuclear strike (August 9, 1945) the population in Nagasaki was estimated to be 263,000, which consisted of 240,000 Japanese residents, 10,000 Korean residents, 2,500 conscripted Korean workers, 9,000 Japanese soldiers, 600 conscripted Chinese workers, and 400 Allied POWs . That day, the Boeing B-29 super fortress Bockscar commanded by Major Charles Sweeney departed from Tinian's North Field just before dawn, this time carrying a plutonium bomb, code named "Fat Man" . The primary target for the bomb was Kokura, with the secondary target, Nagasaki, if the primary target was too cloudy to make a visual sighting. When the plane reached Kokura at 9:44 a.m. (10:44 a.m. Tinian Time), the city was obscured by clouds and smoke, as the nearby city of Yawata had been firebombed on the previous day. Unable to make a bombing attack on visual due to the clouds and smoke and with limited fuel, the plane left the city at 10:30 a.m. for the secondary target. After 20 minutes, the plane arrived at 10:50 a.m. over Nagasaki, but the city was also concealed by clouds. Desperately short of fuel and after making a couple of bombing runs without obtaining any visual target, the crew was forced to use radar in order to drop the bomb. At the last minute, the opening of the clouds allowed them to make visual contact with a racetrack in Nagasaki, and they dropped the bomb on the city's Urakami Valley midway between the Mitsubishi Steel and Arms Works in the south, and the Mitsubishi-Urakami Ordnance Works in the north.53 seconds after its release, the bomb exploded at 11:02 a.m. at an approximate altitude of 500 metres
Here is a shot of a clock that stopped at 11.02 am in the Atominic Museum
Less than a second after the detonation, the north of the city was destroyed and 35,000 people were killed.Among the deaths were 6,200 out of the 7,500 employees of the Mitsubishi Munitions plant, and 24,000 others (including 2,000 Koreans) who worked in other war plants and factories in the city, as well as 150 Japanese soldiers. The industrial damage in Nagasaki was high, leaving 68–80% of the non-dock industrial production destroyed. It was the second and, to date, the last use of a nuclear weapon in combat and also the second detonation of a plutonium bomb. The first combat use of a nuclear weapon was the "Little Boy"bomb, which was dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. The Fat Man bomb was somewhat more powerful than the one dropped over Hiroshima, but because of Nagasaki's more uneven terrain, there was less damage.
To get around the city you can use either the trams or buses, we opted to buy an all day tram pass
This one is a 40 year old tram that's been recently renovated and can be hired for special functions
The epicentre centre of the bomb and the actual blast cloud
After the museum and peace parks we headed off to the Glover Gardens which is a park built for Thomas Glover , a Scottish merchant who contributed to the modernization of Japan in shipbuilding, coal mining, and other fields. In it stands the Glover Residence, the oldest Western style house surviving in Japan and Nagasaki's foremost tourist attraction.
It is located on the Minamiyamate hillside overlooking Nagasaki harbor. It was built by Hidenoshin Koyama and completed in 1863. As the house and its surroundings are reminiscent of Puccini's opera, it is also known as the "Madame Butterfly " House." Statues of Puccini and diva Miura Tamaki, famed for her role as Cio-Cio-san, stand in the park near the house. This house was also the venue of Glover's meetings with rebel samurai clans.
To reach the gardens you take Japan's first slope evaluator which is a bit like a tram car expect you ride in an elevator which is encoded in the brown roof
At the top you get a great view of the surrounding city and harbour
As you stand on the baloney of the first house you have views of the Carp Fish Pond
And views over the ship building yards that contain a giant cantilever crane and was the first electric-powered crane of its type in Japan, imported from Scotland in 1909, which is the oldest surviving one in operation in the world. It can still lift a load of 150 tons and is used to ship heavy goods.
In one of the buildings there was a huge Cycas Revoluta
And another outside Glover's house which was given to him by Lord Shimazu of the Satsuma Clan- it is thought to be approx 300 years old now
The grounds also contained the first ever bitumin road in Japan- not much of it is left though
returned into town by tram and headed off to a have a sashimi lunch and then back to the hotel for an afternoon rest.We decided to go Okonomiyaki for dinner which worked out well as their was one right across the road from us.
We had some octopus balls, grilled squid prams and scallops followed by Okonomiyaki which capped off a great day.The chef above at work plus a shot of the lady making the octopus
