A Weekend Trip to Nagasaki Part 2 - Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum and Glover Garden



Last time I wrote about the the first day of our Nagasaki school trip and today I want to continue by telling about our second day. This is mostly about the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum which is quite a popular tourist destination, so it might be an interesting read for people considering to visit this museum or the one in Hiroshima (which I have yet to visit).

The next day it was time to rise and shine early in the morning (as always), and I really wonder how some of the guys got up that went drinking until deep in the night. Anyway, I was really excited to go to the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum. This might sound weird, but I have always been interested in WOII events and stories and I was just really curious to see who they had set the museum up and what kind of stories they would be portraying there.


By my friend Kim

As you can imagine it is a museum with a lot of impact. It starts off with a dark room that replicated the scenery of a broken church facade and other broken buildings while displaying some horrific movies and photos, which sets an eerie tone for the rest of the museum. After that comes a more factual part with information about the Fat Boy (the atomic bomb), how it works, what happened during and after the explosion and what king of material damaged it did. You then move on the the immediate and long term effects of these bombs and the radiation. The part that I stuck to the longest time was the part with stories, quotes, pictures and movies of survivors. It is just so tough to swallow, but so important to see how horrible a thing this is and why we should prevent something like this from happening again. I think it would be good for everyone to be confronted with these stories and information and to start contemplating about what it is to be living in a world of relative peace at the moment and what we humans do to each other.





Anyway, near the museum is a Peace Park so we went there after the museum. While you walk to the peace park you actually walk past the 'Hypocenter park' where the hypocenter of the atomic was. That feels very strange. The peace park itself is build to commemorate the 10.000 citizens that died because of the bomb. There are several statues and a big fountain in the park, the most famous 'Peace Statue' (which looks like some kind of Greek god to me). I was discussing with my friend about war, peace and suffering because this place really makes you contemplate you know. Other than that, there is not much to see in the park to be honest.




For lunch we ate a place which felt like a massive tourist trap to me haha. We had to wait downstairs until the tables were all set, and downstairs happened to be a tourist shop with many local Japanese foods. In Nagasaki's case the most famous one is a cake originated in Portugal called Castella. Anyway, these shops are a dime in dozen in Japan because Japanese love buying souvenirs. Or rather it is expected of them to buy souvenirs (usually food) even when they are just on a day trip or weekend trip. So to cater to this massive buying of souvenirs there are many of them. There is even one in my local shopping mall where no tourist would ever come (I think).




But I digress. We were tempted with samples of food but then it was time to eat our Chinese-inspired lunch. Nagasaki has always had good relations with China and even the Netherlands and did a lot of trading with these countries. That's why there are a lot of foreign influences in Nagasaki, like the Portugal cakes, Dutch traders' island Dejima, Christian churches and Chinese (fusion) food. So our lunch was one of the fusion foods found in Nagasaki. The food was even placed on one of those Chinese spinning tables.


By Kim

When lunch was finished we moved on to Glover Garden. It is near the Oranda Zaka, or Dutch Slope, and is a very lovely European style house surrounded by a huge garden on top of one of the hills in Nagasaki. The house was built by a Scottish merchant and is another great example of foreign elements in Nagasaki. It offers a gorgeous view of Nagasaki Harbor and the garden itself has a lot of flowers and greenery, and it reminded me a little bit of the garden my grandparents used to have. But Japanese elements aren't missing either because there is a big koi pond and a statue of a woman in kimono. Just like any place in Japan they commercialized the place by building a little cafe and a tourist shop. The cafe is actually really nice because there are seats outside in the garden which is very unusual for Japan. I really miss the Dutch (or European in general) sidewalk cafes and patios, so I was surprised to see it here.




By Kim

After this day full of impressions it was time to head home and let everything sink in.

Have you ever been to an Atomic Bomb Museum? 
What did you think about it?
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6 comments:

  1. Looks like an amazing time! I have never been to Japan but I really want to! xx

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    1. It really was a good time! I think you would love Japan ~ Hopefully you can make it there some day :) xx

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  2. That seems like such an interesting place to visit! I'm a bit of a history buff myself :)

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    1. If you ever get the chance I think it would be a good experience to go there :) Especially since you are a history buff as well!

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  3. I've only been to the one in Hiroshima but it makes me curious to see if it has the same feel at the one in Nagasaki. Also, the first photo of the statue is magnificent. It looks like a greek god with a Japanese face ;)

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    1. I am curious to go to the one in Hiroshima as well. And then make a trip to Miyajima as well ;)
      So true! At first I thought it was a Greek god until I saw his face... very interesting concept :)

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