Nagasaki #2: Gunkanjima and Mount Inasa


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Asia » Japan » Nagasaki » Nagasaki
June 7th 2014
Published: July 10th 2014
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We got up at eight o'clock, that's when the hot water was turned on in the hostel. We left the hostel around nine ish to head to the ferry port for our trip to Battleship Island. We took the tram for a few stops. The journey was pretty quick about 15 minutes. I think we stayed on the same tram and didn't have to change. We were so pleased when we saw a convenient store as soon as we got off the tram. We headed straight there to pick up some breakfast. We got the 'Breakfast of Champions' that we had discovered in Kyoto. It's a cheese and salami slice package and bloody delicious, it's cheap, too, only a couple of dollars. I also got a coffee and a mini-omurice thingy. I love omurice, but a prepackaged one is nowhere near as good as the real deal.

We headed to the tour company office. We had booked our tour before we left Korea. I think there are two companies that run the tour and for whatever reason we choose The Gunkanjima Concierge Company. The tour started at 10 am and we had been told to turn up half an hour early to fill in the paperwork. We sat outside eating our breakfast and reading the disclaimer and then signing it. We stayed outside, but there was a waiting room inside too. We were given ID tags to wear and also given an English audio guide as the tour was conducted entirely in Japanese. The tour was full and we were the only foreigners on the trip. We took some photos of the port and then boarded the boat. We were near the end of the line, so we ended up sitting inside near the front.

The boat ride was pretty smooth and we listened to the audio commentary as we exited the port. It was industrial, but didn't look too bleak, not like back home in the heyday. We passed a big Mitsushi shipyard. We went under a pretty new looking bridge and then we were out on the open sea. The journey took about half an hour and we passed some other islands that are now connected to the mainland by bridge. I thought that the boat journey would take a lot longer, so I was surprised to see the island pop up on the horizon. First of all we sailed around the island. We were on the wrong side though, so we didn't really get to see much. However, the boat went out to sea and turned around, so that us on the other side got a chance to look at the island. Entrance is strictly prohibited unless you are on a tour, and even then it is only to certain areas, you cannot go roaming around the island due to health and safety. You don't want a building to topple over and crush you. However we saw about three or four people wandering freely around the island and fishing, maybe if you wanted to do your own thing you could find a fisherman or skipper willing to take you, but I think you would need good Japanese language skills and plenty of yen.

Hashima aka Gunkanjimaaka Battleship Island named that because it looks like a battleship, lies 4.5 kilometres off the coast of Nagasaki. Coal was discovered on/under the island around 1810, but it wasn't until 1890, when the island and its mine came under the control of Mitsubishi, that full scale sea bed coal mining operations began. As the amount of coal being excavated grew, so did the island. In 1916 the first concrete reinforced high rise apartment building in Japan, was built on the island. The population at its peak was about 5,300 people. Mining was big business. Life on the island was pretty grim, only the senior employees had baths in their homes, everyone else had to use the public baths, which were filled with sea water. Also they were dependent on the sea and good sailing to get the supplies they needed. However the people living on the island had in other respects a better life than people on the main land. They were able to buy a lot more mod cons. The island was a real community, it had a school, hospital, quarantine ward, shrine, swimming pool, cinema, shops, and houses. In January 1974 the mine closed and people began to leave the island, by April 1974 it was uninhabited. It remained that way until 2009, when the island, well a special walkway, was opened up so tourists could visit the island. If you've seen the James Bond movie 'Skyfall', the island may look familiar as it was used in the film as one of the baddie's haunts. However, they only used exterior shots of the island and built a special set to film the interior shots.

The boat pulled up to the island and we all got off. Me and Mel had our plan to hang around at the back, as we wouldn't be able to understand the commentary anyway and then we could take plenty of photos, once everyone had moved on to the next point. It worked well. We wandered along the walkway looking at all the abandoned building in their various states of decay. We could see the old mine, too. From the first observation point we could see the coal storage area and some of the apartment buildings. In the second observation spot we could see the remains of the jetty entrance to the second mineshaft. At the third and final vantage point we could see No. 30 and No. 31 apartment buildings. they were really cool. I wish it was possible to wander around them. It was fierce wandering around in the sun and it was nice to get back on the boat as it was cool and away from the sunlight. The journey back didn't take too long and the staff came around selling ice cream filled Castellas (Castella is a traditional food from Nagasaki). I happily purchased one and munched away on it. It was good.

After disembarking at the port, we hopped on the tram and headed to Nagasaki station. I had read about another sushi train restaurant there, so we went to check it out. However when we got there we realised that it was quite expensive and we would only be able to afford a few plates, so we decided not to go. We had a look for another cheaper, sushi place, but there were none. Nothing else really looked too appealing, but we did find a coffee shop that sold the most amazing looking bagels. The poster outside worked a treat on us, it was a bagel filled with smoked salmon, prawns, avocado, and mayo. The Holy Grail of sandwiches, and all things, bar the mayo, that are difficult or ridiculously priced in Korea. Korean and Japan are so close, how come Japan gets all the good food, and we don't. The bagels looked less appealing in real life, but they were cheap only three or four dollars, and were tasty. They filled a spot.

The midday sun was pretty fierce, so we decided to retreat indoors for a bit until it cooled down. We headed to the top floor of the mall attached to the station, to do something we've always wanted to do in Japan, Pachinko! It's basically just an arcade filled with games. We played on a drum game, where I think we had to hit the beats correctly, I don't think we did very well on that, as we didn't really know who was meant to hit when. Then we used the coin machine to change some notes into tokens. you can't gamble with money in Japan, so they get around it by using the tokens instead. I think it's something to do with they can't give you money as a prize, so they have to give you a gift prize istead. We played the game where you've got to drop the coins in and they push others over the edge. We also played a game, we didn't understand and a horse racing game, that I was doing really badly on, until I realised my collect tokens button was broken and didn't light up. I collected quite a few tokens once I realised what was going on.

After we had used up all our tokens, we headed over to the photo booth section. Since it was a Saturday afternoon, it was heaving with teenage girls, getting their pictures taken with their mates. We picked a machine called Cherry something or other and headed in. I think it was about 400 or 500 yen. We had a load of fun posing for the pictures. The machine even suggests poses that you should do. After it has finished taking the photos, we walked round to the monitor and got to pimp our photos. We added loads of cheesy stickers and we ended up with these random Japanese names, as we just hit random symbols. God only knows what we wrote. We were happy with the results when the pictures were finished.

We were feeling hungry again, all that gambling and posing gave us an appetite, so we headed back to the sushi restaurant that we had been to yesterday. The sushi chefs laughed when they saw us again. We had some lovely sushi, today I tried the random salami one and beat my pitiful plate stack form the day before I think. We then headed over to Daiso and went made buying a load of stuff that we totally didn't need but felt that complete our lives. We also went back to Can Do and I couldn't even remember what I had bought the day before and ended up buying some of the same stuff again, oops. We went back to the hostel briefly to drop off our bags of crap that we had purchased and then we were off out again.

We took the train to the station nearest the Nagasaki Rope Way, then from the tram, it was an easy 15-20 minute walk. We walked up a short, but steep hill and found the ticket office. The staff at the hostel had given us this free tourist card thing and by using it here, we scored a hefty discount off the tickets, I think our return ticket ended up being cheaper than the regular price of a one way trip. We lined up in the queue for the cable car, the queue was quite big, but it didn't take us too long to get in the cable car. The journey up didn't take too long, although we were all packed into the cable car, so the views weren't great. It was dark by the time we had got to the top. There was a walkway that was covered with bright blue lights, and we took some photos under them.

The view from the top of Mount Inasa looking down over the city and the harbour is meant to be one of the night time views in the world. The view was gorgeous. We stood admiring the view and then went into the observatory to have a nose around, we saw the ice cream castella things that we had eaten on the boat trip that morning. We also went up to the viewing deck to get some more photos. No matter how hard I try I can never get decent night shots. It's the alcoholic shakes that my hands have 😉 So we just spent most of the time soaking up the view with our eyes. It was a little chilly up there, so after a little while we took the cable car back down. We stopped off at the nearest Lawson to pick up some beers and snacks.

Back at the hostel we spent a while getting ready, putting on our make-up, listening to some tunes, drinking our beers, and just generally dicking around taking selfies. We missed the last tram to Shianbashi, by the time we had finished getting ready, so we just walked down there. It didn't take too long. We stopped at a bar that we had seen the previous night called Chingu. We had thought that was funny as Chingu means friend in Korean, we didn't know if it means anything in Japanese. The bar had been full last night when we had walked past, but it was empty tonight. The owner was really lovely and tried to chat to us, but as we can't speak any Japanese it was really hard. We had a maehwasu each, it's a plum liquor and we had it with ice. Maehwasu is the Korean name, I don't know what the Japanese name is. We had another drink there, Mel had a strawberry liquor thing and I had a green tea plum liquor, that was really nice.

We were in need of a bathroom by this point and we decided to head over to Maccy D's to use their facilities. We felt a bit guilty about using their facilities for free and we were hungry, so we queued up to get some food. When it was our turn ,the server motioned to serve the bloke behind us, and that we should stand aside, what the fuck! We were dumbfounded, anyway the bloke behind us told the server to serve us and we got our food and walked away, majorly bitching about MacDonalds. Was the dude being racist or sexist? Is a Japanese salary man more important that the foreign women, who were patiently waiting? I hope there was a reasonable explanation, that could not be construed because of the language barrier, but you never know and I am a cynical being. We shared some fries, a chicken burger, and a cheeseburger. They didn't really hit the spot.

We went off for a wander, still feeling hungry. We happened uopn a small hole in the wall fried chicken joint. We ordered some chicken and devoured it when it arrived. I have never had fried chicken that was so juicy and moist before, it was amazing. Definitely wins the crown of best fried chicken in my book. I crossed the street to take a photo of the store, a taxi driver going past was looking at me, like I was mad. Sorry, but I need a photo of this amazing little place. We wandered the streets for a bit longer. The prossies and their pineapple haired pimp wannabes were out in force. We decided that we would go to Shidax, the karaoke place, we had seen it the night before, but weren't sure if it was a karaoke place, the guys at the hostel had confirmed it was. First of all we went to the convenience store to buy some beers, it wouldn't be right if we didn't smuggle our own drink in. We headed back to the karaoke place and paid for one hour. The room we got was small but nice, nicer than a lot of the noraebangs I have been to in Korea. The karaoke was different as there was no book to pick songs from instead you had to find them on the controller. We went well over our allotted hour and the staff kept ringing the phone in the room to tell us to get out. We kept ignoring it and eventually someone came and told us we had to leave. We ended up having to pay more, but no biggie. We wandered back to the hostel, tired and happy, a great day over.


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