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Published: November 21st 2007
It is amazing how quick a week can pass when you are out enjoying yourself. It was with mixed emotions that I checked out from the room which had been my base for the past week, knowing that from this day on the trip would shift into high gear, as I would stay in no less than five cities the coming week. I was also a bit torn about leaving Fukuoka in the middle of the Kyushu Basho, but on the other hand I was also looking forward to seeing a little bit more than half naked men tugging at each other's nine meter silk belts (Liar! Heresy!).
The first destination on my list was
Nagasaki. Although I at first considered going to Hiroshima I instead opted for Nagasaki as it was a much closer location and would fit better with my agenda of covering western Kyushu island. Besides, the things I had read up on Nagasaki described it as a small town with interesting scenery easily covered by tram or on foot. To get there, trains depart pretty much hourly from
Hakata station (To clarify; Fukuoka and Hakata is a conjoined dual city, the eastern part Hakata also holds
the main railway station with the long distance Shinkansen-services, including the ultraspeedy Nozomi-express straight to Tokyo). The Fukuoka subway of course connects with Hakata station so the transfer was just as ultra-smooth as when arriving by plane. I cannot think of many cities where travellers are so spoilt with good communications. Before I left Fukuoka I decided it would be a shame not to try out the one and only Citibank ATM on the whole of Kyushu island, and since it was just one block from my hotel there really was no excuse. I have since heard that it is supposedly also possible for foreign credit card holders to withdraw money from ATMs located in all post offices as well as a couple of thousand 7-11 ATMs installed in the Japanese version of the 7-11 franchise. I haven't tried these options so far myself, although I did meet a guy on the plane to Fukuoka who hadn't had any luck with the 7-11 ones.
Getting a ticket to Nagasaki was hassle free. Since many people buy their train tickets in ticketing machines they same way as you purchase subway tickets or citybus tickets there were no hopeless long lines
(the average Chinese railway station comes to mind...) and although the language difficulties are always there it proved relatively smooth to get exactly the type of seat that I wanted. Access to train platforms is restricted to ticket holders the same way you pass through turnstiles in the subway. The coaches and seats are all clearly marked and the trains are known for their punctuality. There is no high-speed shinkansen service to Nagasaki, in fact there is only a single corridor on Kyushu Island covered by the Tsubame 800-series. Servicing Kagoshima-Hakata it was opened in 2004 and it will not be fully completed until 2010.
The express train to Nagasaki is of the Kamome variant, and like the subway trains of Fukuoka it somehow gives off a strange feeling of being a survivor from a lost era of train travel. These trains must at one time have been ultra modern, now they are still comfortable and slick, but their interiors betray their age. The train covers the trip to Nagasaki in around two hours and twenty minutes, stopping in some ten places along the way. The strange thing is, as we departed Hakata it never actually felt that we
Boarded and bound for Nagasaki
Hakata-Nagasaki. 2.5 hrs. 4710 JPY (including seat reservation)had left the city until we were stopping in the next community. There were simply no boundaries between these places, names on platforms changed, but the train never took any scenic routes through the wilderness, instead it continued to cut through small towns and heavily cultivated farmlands. Save for a few tunnels and the coastline it felt as if all of Kyushu is just a gigantic habitat.
The weather was nice and sunny along the tracks and Nagasaki showed off its most welcoming blue sky as we arrived dead on time. My traveling companions scattered with the wind; a group of giggling teenage girls, a group of businessmen, two American backpackers, one of whom dropped a now classic
Ladies as he walked past the aforementioned girls, and an old woman sleeping by my side. Actually, a correction is in order. It seemed as if the Japanese travellers all succumbed to mass psychosis, as at first they all had all sorts of weird stinky snacks, then they all fell asleep within minutes of each other.
The level of detail that had gone into my pre-planning of this trip must be unsurpassed; I had studied the road grid on Google
En route to Nagasaki
Traffic is still kind of limited here... Earth several times and plotted the direction to the hotel accordingly. As a result there was no confusion needed, I just walked out of the station building directly to the tram stop, grabbed the correct tram, took the exact number of stations and paid the exact fare upon leaving (the battle to get out of a fully loaded tram with a pair of bags is not recommended...). This is also where my hopelessly personal blog entry pun comes in;
Dejima is not only a famous rikishi in the makuuchi division, but also the name of the sector of Nagasaki where the Dutch traders where once gathered and boxed in to avoid spreading their European filth around too much.
Still, once I arrived in the area where I expected the hotel to be, there was... another hotel. I don't know exactly how I ended up criss-crossing several streets just one block away from the building, but at least it was a humbling experience. At the hotel they provided me with a large corner room with a separate little hallway with a closeable door. From the window I could look up towards the nearby slopes and hills, all covered in an
amazing density of small houses. And just one block away was the seaside park with direct views of the Mitsubishi shipyards and two amazingly large LNG tankers currently in port. Torn between these, there was also the option of catching the day's sumo matches. Aaarrghh...decisions, decisions. In the end, laziness and sumo won.
Once the last bout of the day was over I headed out on town again, and by this time it was sundown and a biting cool wind was caressing the streets. I followed the tramway northbound until I reached the heart of the city and the entertainment district
Shian-Bashi. Hidden behind the main street with its heavy traffic and spawn of shops and gallerias was a maze of narrow alleyways. These streets were clogged with people heading for restaurants, bars or
pachinko parlours. This being a Saturday night meant that the area was on full speed ahead. I walked past many little promising doorways with red paper lamps dangling outside, and given Nagasaki's history as a trading port with a questionable reputation for red light activities at first I wasn't exactly sure what these lamps represented. And although fancy restaurants and bars would now occupy these
places I noticed there was still room for a bit of sleeze. Apart from the questionable signs from various girliebars and discrete clubs I was also approached by working girls a couple of times in the street. The keyword seems to be
massage. After enjoying the vibes of this place for a while I started getting a bit tired of all the drunken
sararimen in their best suits, zig-zaging their way through the streets and moved on.
I walked through dark and silent residential areas, all the while being accosted by hopeful taxi drivers, and headed over to the seaside park to see if I could get some good city views. The wind was really biting out by the waterfront so I didn't loiter for longer than necessary before heading back indoors to my warm room.
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Moster Yster
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Nice pic´s
Really nice night pictures. Though I wouldn´t like to find myself in the long deserted "corridor" by night (or by day for that matter).