Weekend in Nagasaki

Well, we had our first Japanese vacation last weekend, and had a great time in Nagasaki! It reminded us alot of San Francisco, with rolling hills right on the water, and a large bay and harbor. They even have a Chinatown, although it was smaller than the one in San Francisco. But, we tasted the local specialty there - champon, and saw most of the must-see sights...

Here is the Nagasaki harbor - the historical trading post for Japan, even in its long period of isolation.

This is the small Japanese-style inn, or ryokan, the Nishikiso, where we stayed. The service was fantastic, and the rooms were very nice...

Here is our day-time living quarters, which turns into the bedroom at night... when we went out for dinner, the innkeeper came in and made up our futon, and brought a hot thermos of water so we could make green tea.

The futons!

Here is the rest of the room. Small, but was everything we needed...

..including bathroom slippers. Almost all bathrooms have some type of these at the entrance, since you don't want to (I guess) wear your regular shoes/slippers into the bathroom.

Will and the view down a common sidestreet near our ryokan.

And here is the first temple we visited.. all along the hillsides, there are temples mixed in with apartment buildings, hotels, etc. This is Sofukuji Temple.

After entering through the above doors, you walk up some steps, and come to this... a window/door into the temple grounds.

I snuck this photo from inside the largest structure. There were many statues inside them, and you can walk up to them, and peer inside, but not go in.

And just next to the temple grounds were rows and rows and rows of gravestones up the hillside. We wandered through the nearest ones. The cicadas were really loud, and everything was pretty overgrown. Very cool.

Here's Will among some of the growth.

And, on Temple Row, there were many other...temples...

This is a hill of gravestones that we climbed all the way up to.... and climbed and climbed...

Seriously.

At Grover Garden, where a number of western traders lived and worked above the city... in quite fanciful environs! Here's me enjoying the view... wish I had a cup of ice tea!

Will next to a common old wall, overgrown with moss.

And here is the A-Bomb hypocenter. The column marks the exact spot where the atom bomb exploded, 500 meters above ground. Yea, it was kinda creepy.

This is the large statue at the Peace Park. His right arm extended upwards warns of the atomic bomb, and his left hand, lowered, calls for peace.

And finally, we headed to the Eyeglass Bridge for a Saturday night summer festival... there were food stalls, and a small entertainment venue. It was warm out, and vibrant with people. A nice ending to our weekend in Nagasaki!

The entertainment...

...and the entertained!