entry nº 26a // 20180814

back in january, after my kyoto trip but still within the one-week period of my japan rail pass, i took a day trip to nagasaki. january 25th, i suppose it was, according to the dates on my photos, here. it’s about a two hour-ish? train ride from here on the kamome train. not as fast as the shinkansen but still clean and quick and smooth. 

nagasaki feels small in a good way, tucked in tight between the mountains and the sea, wrapped around the eastern side of a bay. big time port city vibe, clean lines, modern. no subway, but it’s got streetcars, and i love a good city w/ streetcars (see also: bilbao, bordeax). there’s just something about it. 

popped on the streetcar for a few stops, hopped off, and wandered around the dejima wharf area and the big art museum. sunny crisp clear day. up the backstreets of the dutch slope, small stone streets, western-style old buildings. found my way over to a tucked-away funicular that shoko had tipped me off about – dipped in there + rode that up to the entrance to glover gardens. this guy, thomas glover? totally interesting guy. and here i am at his estate, preserved + maintained there, high up on a hill overlooking the city below. it was beautiful. wandered around and read whatever informational placards i could find. this guy was like, all involved in all sorts of stuff in japan: introduced the first steam locomotive; helped some rebel samurai sneak away to england to get western educations; was involved in founding companies that would later become mitsubishi and kirin brewing; want bankrupt at some point but kind of kept things going anyway? pretty interesting. i was just loving those information placards throughout. not to mention great views up there, too. 

meandered back down from there along some little streets w/ shops and people. bought a delicious pork bun at this one shop, and was warned by one of the employees to watch out for birds overhead, who were known to swoop down and steal the bun out of tourists’ hands, and whose (the employee’s) explanation was aided by an a4-size printed photo of the birds, kept in a kind of beat-up clear folder, to help you get an idea of what they looked like. came across a whimsical-looking building that turned out to be a children’s book museum. popped inside and browsed the shop on the first floor, though i passed on the actual “museum” area on the second floor. 

continued down through chinatown (reminiscent, in size and vibe, of boston’s chinatown a bit, maybe?), waffled about a bit on where to get lunch before finally picking a kinda touristy-looking spot on the corner? but that had a fair number of people in it so i figured, oh what the heck (you have this idea when you travel of like, finding the perfect little local hole-in-the-wall spot? but you’re also kind of shy, language-wise, here, and that shyness manifests itself as indecision). got a beer and a big bowl of champon noodles, a nagasaki specialty (the noodles, i mean, not specifically the beer and the noodles together). it was delicious. getting a beer and a meal while traveling on your own is one particular decadence life has to offer, that’s for sure. 

to be continued