Nagasaki Pt2 – Hiroshima
I spent a second day in Nagasaki, to check out the downtown districts, away from the A-bomb memorial. Changed from the boarder line ok hotel (guidebook recommendation) I was at to a very nice hostel in a much better location (not in guidebook, long live internet hostel sites) for less money…
After getting that formality out of the way I explored the old Dutch district, ate lunch there and went on to the old chinese quarter, the current chinatown and what they call “temple row” here, where there’s literally a street with temples lining one side of it for quite a ways. After all that walking in the oppressive heat and humidity here I went back to the hotel to cool off and regain some energy. I found a upperscale looking place for dinner, orders 3 items, good as always here, filled me up and it was a grand total of $12. Including the shochu…. I stopped on the way back to the hostel and got a tetrapack of shochu from the corner 7/11 for $1. mmmmm.
Overall, Nagasaki isn’t the most exciting place in Japan. It has a good nitelife district and a nice harbourside area. Other than that it doesn’t really hold up to the standards of most of the places I’ve been here.
Next morning it was on to Hiroshima, 3 hours of train travel including the change in Fukuoka. One train had leather seats, never seen that before. I found the hostel easily in Hiroshima, then went off to see the peace park and A-bomb memorial dome. One of the buildings that was still standing after the blast was left up as a memorial and that’s now part of the peace park.
I tried the local speciality for dinner here, a Japanese style pancake (already one of my favourites) with Hiroshima oysters, very good. Stumbled across a very nice looking Irish pub so I walked in and had a couple pints, best Hoegaarden I’ve had in a long time. Walked back to the hostel and right there, in the common room, is an acoustic guitar. Sat down, got out one of the picks I brought with me for times like this and played for a good hour or so, my fingers do not thank me, but I didn’t care…
Tags: Japan, Travel
Adam
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