Mt. Unzen

The day after Nagasaki city, we went to nearby Mt. Unzen. Like everything else in Japan, it's volcanically active. There was a cool museum, where we learned about the most recent erruptions in the 90's. Between that museum and the atomic bomb museum in Nagasaki, I dubbed the trip "Death and Destruction" weekend. Good thing no philanthropic group hit me up for money right then. I couldn't have resisted. Anyhow, got some nice pictures driving around the mountain.




We stopped at a castle in the area. I have forgotten the name. Forgive me. It was pretty much like every other castle I have seen in Japan. The orchards were nice.


That's all for Golden Week.

On an unrelated note... I've been pretty unhappy with blogspot lately. It's been slow to load, and sometimes I can't get pictures to upload for no apparent reason. I'm thinking of migrating somewhere else... Any thoughts or suggestions?

Nagasaki

Golden Week, for those of you not in Japan, is the first week in May. Pretty much everyone in Japan travels, and I was no exception. I went to Nagasaki May 3 and 4. It took about 3 hours to get there. 20 minutes to the port, an hour on the ferry, and another 1 1/2 to Nagasaki city. Here we are, waiting for the ferry. By the way, for you folks at home, that's Yuki, my boyfriend for the last few months.


View of the Nagasaki coastline from the ferry.





One of the must-see locales in Nagasaki city is Chinatown. It's pretty much like every other Chinatown I've ever been to, only cleaner and more expensive. Had some good food.





During Japan's isolationist period, Nagasaki was the only port open to the west. As a result, there was a heavy influence from Portugese missionaries. Here's a picture of Oura Church. It was interesting to see a historical church in Japan. Certainly, I've seen more impressive churches, but the way Japanese people were marveling over things like the pews was very cute to me. Probably like how we ooh and ahh over shrines and temples.







Next up was the Glover Garden. Beautiful, though again it was a bit strange for me to watch Japanese tourists snapping photos of all of the western things.






And, of course, Heiwa Koen (Peace Memorial Park) .

That's all for Nagasaki city proper. The next day we visited Mt. Unzen. I will post as soon as blogger is once more cooperative (right now it doesn't want to upload my pics).