Sunroute Nagasaki Hotel

As the only point of contact with the West for over 200 years, there`s a sense of history in Nagasaki.

I love walking along the water front (I confess, give me a port anywhere and I`m happy), and thinking how it was through these ...

We arrived in Nagasaki at 0800 today (our Monday—your Sunday). We plan to visit ground zero where the A Bomb was dropped and go to the museum. After that we'll just play it by ear and look around.

Kobe was great. I tasted my first Kobe beef steak. The claim that it is "fork tender" is absolutely no ...

... where you actually got to select your fish of choice from a large pool in teh centre of the room! (A bit like that steak episode in the simpsons). While it turned out that the lunch set didn't give you the luxury of playing caesar and deciding who dies, this did make you feel less guilty as you sat at the bar, eating a great selection of fish related foods, and staring at the fish as they swam about leisurely.

After lunch Belinda and I were ...

... so I popped in. No English menu just a couple of pictures so I thought why not. I pointed at this soupy noodle dish and hoped for the best. It came and and was bloody amazing. The place was called Green Pepper so it had some spice to it, it came with rice on the side, the bowl of soupy goodness containing some form of meat, veggies and stuff. Amazing… the only problem is I could probably not order it again as I have no idea what it was called!

I got ...

... besitzerin die nicht weiß das ich da bin) nähern sich mir. Ich seh die Schatten hinter den Glasschiebetüren und schrei laut Suuuumimaaasen.... ein Ah kommt zurück und sie drehen wieder ab... naja... glück gehabt, sonst hätte es geändet wie in einen schlechten Anime....

Hab mir Vans Schuhe gekauft und zwei T-shirts bei uniqlo (hurraaaa ausverkauf in japan!!) außerdem noch ein Kapuzenshirt mit pilzen drauf ^_°
Sind dann am 31. August weitergefahen nach Fukuoka...

... onze lijven zijn (relatief) minder stijf. Je merkt dat als lopen op zich al moeite kost, dat zo`n rugzak vreselijk is. Hoogtepunt van vandaag is onze Ryokan in Nagasaki. We hebben een eigen appartementje (gang, douche/camper, toilet (sproei/fohn) en een echte Japanse kamer. Deze is voorzien van een Japans tafeltje met kussentjes eromheen. Op de vloer ligt tatami mat. `s nachts gaat het tafeltje opzij en slapen we op matjes op de tatami. (hoe dat zal zijn? we ...

... women came up to us whilst we were eating lunch on a bench and gave us some japanese sweet cakes ......we couldnt understand it and i dont think we even said `domo` (thank you) before she left! we headed straight for the peace park and the atom bomb museum. the museum was extremely interesting - it had loads of objects including huge iron structures that had been ...

... and the Portuguese...I will no doubt learn a bit more about that tomorrow. Visting the A-Bomb museum and park was quite a surreal experience. "Never forget August 9th, 19.45, 11am" is the message told by the peace statue. This is the time when the Americans dropped the Fat Man bomb over Nagasaki, making it the second ever city to be nuked. You read about it in books and see it on TV but nothing can really prepare you for the sense of reality you get ...

... awful... After that, I went to an award ceremony for Nana who was to receive a certificate for her amazing calligraphy. I was told that it would last from 1-3, but in typical Japanese style, it didnt start until 2 at which point we began an hour long game of bingo. I was a first aid kit complete with a fancy ear pick (they use ear picks rather than q-tips to clean their ears...my family does it quite publicly which ...

... had been constructed to shoot the water in the shape of a huge Dove (the symbol of Peace). The Park had been built on top of the foundations of a POW camp, just next to ground zero (or the 'epicentre' for you military-bomb-buffs). And when I say 'foundations', I mean that is literally all that was left of the POW camp. A little ironic that this, being pretty much the place where the bomb struck, housed nothing but Allied servicemen and an unprecedented ...