The 13th day- Cosmopolitan Nagasaki

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Today was better than yesterday, no great dramas! And I woke up this morning with a roof over my head so thats something hey? The minshuku really isn't that bad, I was a bit annoyed yesterday and my first impressions were still fresh in my mind. I got woken up this morning by the old lady telling me that breakfast was ready, which was weird because I havn't had that for a while! She even came into the room and opened the curtains and windows and put the fan on because it was hot, just like a mother would do, although I think usually when your Mum does it she really means get up now or else. I went downstairs for breakfast and the other guests or guest, not sure cos I havn't seen anyone around, had already eaten and so I sat in the dining room eating the food they had laid out, it was the strangest breakfast I've ever had but it was free so I'm not complaining. It consisted of a small beef patty, two bread rolls, a hash brown, half a tomato, some chopped cabbage (I have no idea why but the Japanese have a thing for cabbage), a slice of pineapple and coffee. Strange hey?

After that the old lady said the bathroom was free if I wanted to have a shower so I used the shower, but it's actually not a combined bathroom like I said it was yesterday, it's the family bathroom! That is, the same one that the old couple use aswell! And you can only use it one at a time because there is only one shower. That was sort of a relief, I have no problems with being naked in public in front of women anymore but guys is a whole different story! So in Japanese traditional bathrooms you take off your clothes in a litte room before you enter the bathroom, then take a shower and wash yourself and then have a bath (if you want) and the go back to the little room to dry and put your clothes on. The little room this minshuku has is about one metre by one metre and doesn't have a door, just opens up right onto the hallway, it does have some cloth hanging down from the top but it only goes down half way and its made of netting anyway so you can still see thorugh it. This shocked me, do these people not know what privacy is? Someone could walk past at any moment! But, "when in Rome, do as the Romans do", isn't that the saying? So I followed the rules, and no-one walked past! This place feels like I'm living in a Japnese household with my grandparents or something, actually quite nice, and they are lovely people, although they keep calling me Martin san! I told them that Alana is fine (or Arana as I'm known here), but still its Martin san. They stand at the door and say the customary Itterashai when I leave (this is the expresson that you say when someone leaves the house and intends to come back) and I say Ittekimasu, which is the reply that you say when you're the one who leaves, it literally means I'll go and come back. So it feels like I'm living with a family, which is a big change, havn't done that for a while.

So today I went and looked at the sights of Nagasaki and had a very busy but very enjoyable day. I went to the Nagasaki Peace Park this morning, which is sort of similar to the one in Hiroshima but it's not as big. There're monuments everywhere around the park here too and the centre of the park is the Peace statue which was constructed in 1955 for the 10th anniversary. It's a bronze statue of a man that is 10m high and he's got his right arm raised up to represent where the atomic bomb went off in the sky, his left arm is held horizontally representing the threat that there are still countries out there who have nuclear bombs, his eyes are half closed in memory of those who lost their lives, one leg is crossed in the meditation style to represent peace and the other is posed as if ready to stand up to help those who need it. It's a very moving statue. I also went and saw the monument that had been constructed at the site of the hypocentre of the bomb.　It's a weird feeling standing there next to the monument looking directly up and knowing that right above you was the place where the bomb went off and caused so much destruction and death. They also had a piece of the ground preserved in a glass case that shows what it looked like after tha bomb went off, you could see bits of debris and charred rock and broken tea cups and everything.

After that I went to the Nagasaki Peace museum too, the stories and photos were much the same as the ones in Hiroshima, no less devastating but still the same. If anything they had more revealing photos of the people who had suffered burns, which were pretty horrible to look at and they also had a lot of exhibits that told the stories of survivors. I would read some stories and poems that had been written and think that they sounded so sad and helpless but also like they came from someone that had seen so much in their life and then find out that it had been written by an 8 year old girl. To think that these children sounded so grown up and the things they wrote were full of wisdom, yet they hadn't even lived the most part of their lives yet. They do say that children say the truest things.

I think this musuem, on the whole, was a bit more biased towrds the Japanese than the Hiroshima one, just some of the things they said made it sound like they were the only victims and that they had done nothing wrong. That struck a cord with me, they should be teaching the next generation ALL of the history. In fact I was outside looking at a monument that had been constructed in memory of the 20,000 Koreans that had died that day, and it said that there were around 20,000 Koreans in Nagasaki at the time of the bomb because the Japanese were using them for slave labour and other such menial tasks, and that some were also POWs; and the Japanese lady that was behind me (who would have been at least in her 30's) said to her husband "I had no idea that we were doing that to the Koreans, and I didn't know that so many died here because of the bomb, I thought it was just the Japanese who suffered", sadly that is the case with so many Japanese people, they don't know the full story about WWII and all that happened.

After my morning of peace and atomic bomb sightseeing I went to look around Nagasaki more so I could get a feel of the city. And I was right yesterday, it isn't that big a city at all. It's actually a very cosmopolitan city. The centre of it does have big buildings and shops lining the streets and the roads are busy with traffic. And when I say that it isn't that big a city I don't mean in area, because it is very large in that respect, you need to use the tram or buses to get around, too big to walk, what I mean is that even though there are tall buildings there are no skyscrapers like you see in Sydney, and because of this you can see the montains that surround the city from pretty much anywhere.

Nagasaki has been influenced by lots of other countries, as during the war and pre-war period it was the only place in Japan that was open to the outside world. The only trading that went on, went on in Nagasaki and as a result it has lots of international influence. Mainly from Europe, like Portugal and Holland, and also China. The back streets of Nagasaki are something you wouldn't think would be found in Japan, and defintiely not in a city as big as Nagasaki. They are small pebble-stoned streets, you know the type you would expect to see in Europe and it really does feel like Europe when you walk around them. The main shopping street near my minshuku is like this and when I left this morning I had a quick walk around it, it was a really lovely feeling to be walking in the morning sun with the little shops on either side selling fresh fruit and vegetables and the smell of freshly made bread coming from the bakeries, little old ladies with their sun umberellas walking along talking to each other. Oh and Bianca I found a bakery named after you, your name in Japanese is pronounced exactly the same you see, I thought you might like to know that you have a bakery in Japan, I thought it was interesting because Bianca really isn't that common a name.

The rest of my day consisted of milking my one day tram pass for all it was worth and so I went to all the famous places, shrines and gardens and temples and famous streets etc. My feet are so sore now but it was good to get a feel for the city, I actually really like this place, OK OK, I know I've said that about all of the places I've been but after my day yesterday I wasn't sure if I would or not. It has its own character and spirit, not just another big city in Japan. Lots of history. I went and had dinner at a Chinese restaurant in Chinatown tonight. Why, I hear you ask, are you eating Chinese food in Japan? Well like I said before China had a lot of influence on Nagasaki and so has a lot of Chinese residents and also a Chinatown. And if Hiroshima is famous for Okonomiyaki then Nagasaki is famous for Chanpon, which originated from China. It's a noddle soup with fresh vegetables, pork, chicken, prawns, other seafood etc on top and very tasty! And Chinese restaurants in Japan aren't the same as the ones in Australia, the food is different, better actually and I like Chinese in Australia! The food they sell here is more like what you would eat at a Chinese home, or so I'm told by my Chinese friends.

So that was my day, I'm in the internet cafe now and I'm going to go "home" and relax in front of the TV I think. They have english TV channels at the minshuku which was a big suprise, a nice one though.
Actaully, if theres one area of Nagasaki that reminds me of a proper city its this area, the "entertainment" district its called, yeah, Ok they really mean red light district but whatever makes them happy to say. It does have lots of clubs and stuff too though. When I left here last night after writing my diary entry it was around 10.30 and ther were young people everywhere dressed like you wouldn't believe and some guys hanging around motorbikes and even a few guys that were throwing up in plastic bags at the tram station, lovely!! But this is what I expect a city to be like, and so far I hadn't come across it in Japan, I knew that it must exist, even in the places I've already been, I just hadn't seen it. But this interent cafe is more than an internet cafe, its 24hours and you can come here to play computer games and drink etc. So thats why its in this area. I've told people that I don't feel unsafe walking around Japan by myself, not even at night in the cities or at night in the little towns, not like at home, in Sydney when I had to come home from Japanese class at 8 o'clock at night and walk from uni to the train station, that was scary, but here it's fine. I am still cautious but I don't feel scared, it's good that there's at least one place in the world where you can still feel safe!

Ok I'm outta here, not sure what I'm doing tommorow yet but it'll be something fun!

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Photos

The Dutch Slope
A famous area where a lot of western (namely Dutch) houses are