Issue 17 - atomic age
A possibly weekly email about what's been going on in my brain
12 - 18 March 2023
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Six weeks is the longest contiguous time I've been outside of the UK. I'm finding it difficult to comprehend the amount of things I've done in those weeks, my time up in the snowy north seems like an age away now. I've said that my diary has been a huge help before (85 A4 pages long now according to Google Docs) in making sure that all the incidental things I've experienced don't get drowned out by new things, but I'm hoping it'll be invaluable further down the line when I'm trying to tot up all the places I've been and sights I've seen.
As very brief numerical summary: in the past 41 days I've stayed in 16 different places (and that many hotels/ryokans/B&Bs), done well over half a million steps (600,671 or about 14,650 a day), and travelled on just about every major kind of transportation I can think of.
Nagasaki
Getting to Nagasaki from Kurokawa Onsen was a feat in itself. A two hour drive back to Kumamoto, followed by a bus to the ferry port, a ferry across to Shimabara, a bus to Unzen, another bus to Nagasaki, and then the world's angriest taxi driver depositing me at the wrong hotel. It was certainly a day. Transfers that looked tight on paper turned out to be far more forgiving, but despite it all miraculously going to plan, the entire journey effectively wiped out an entire day (it's about the journey John, not the destination).
Nagasaki is most famous for the atomic bomb that was dropped on it, but that just means the city was rebuilt with modern planning in mind making getting around an absolute joy (sensible city planning, not American city planning also known as "you need a car to go anywhere"). My first day of sightseeing wasn't looking great weather-wise so I visited the Peace Park and A-Bomb Museum first which is as horrifying and emotional as a museum could be. Along with Hiroshima's museum (more on that later), I ardently believe any world leader from the nuclear states has a duty to come and see these monuments and relics and hear these stories. Apart from a strong anti-nuclear weapon opinion, the museum is entirely factual and objective, it doesn't shy away from what was done but nor does it pass it judgement. It's a humbling and essential visit if you're ever here.
After that morning and with inclement weather imminent, I headed to the Nagasaki Museum of History and Culture and was immediately ushered into a period re-enactment of a trial about particularly violent kite flying. It was played for laughs but the costumes and energy were great, especially as the performers were all museum volunteers. Afterwards I got to wander around an impressive number of displays about the effect the Dutch and Chinese had on Nagasaki's art, crafts, trade etc. Near to the museum is a monument dedicated to the 26 Christians that were martyred when the religion was outlawed in the 16th century, but at this point I was feeling a bit museum'ed out and certainly wasn't in any mood for a religious deep-dive.
The weather had improved markedly the next day so it was an opportunity to do the more outdoorsy sights: Glover Gardens, Dejima, Sofukuji Temple, and Inasayama Observatory. If that sounds like a full-on day you would absolutely be right.
Glover Gardens is on a hill overlooking the shipyards, fitting as it served as the residence for several families of noteworthy foreign industrialists; some quirky western-style houses and pleasant stroll typifies the gardens and was a low-key way to kick off the day. Dejima is an artificially constructed island where the Dutch were sequestered after Japan closed its borders ("sakoku") in the 17th century. Now it's an almost fully restored city-block of exhibits and displays covering everything from copper exports to pottery imports (from Staffordshire!) and I found myself absolutely loving it, a place to really get absorbed into. Sofukuji is a Buddhist temple built by the Chinese in the 17th century and though it is visually distinct from a lot of the other Japanese Buddhist temples by virtue of using Chinese architectural techniques, it's a little shabby and underwhelming in person.
Inasayama Observatory though was one of my main reasons for coming to Nagasaki. The night view is counted as one of the best in Japan and the last time I came here I took one of my favourite photos so I heartily agree with that rating. Reached by a ropeway (or walking if you're feeling spry, I was not) it offers superb views across Nagasaki, the bay, and surrounding hills, and it's an absolute wonder to behold. It was also bitingly cold which I had thankfully planned for, but didn't make it easier to take photos. Some camera faffery means I'm not 100% sure I've taken the photo that I wanted to and will have to wait and see when I can develop photos once again. My gut feeling is I've underexposed which would be disappoint but we'll see!
And if all that felt like a lot of words about Nagasaki, it's probably because I'm quite fond of the city. Like Kagoshima it's easy to navigate and pleasant to be in, but has a bit more character to it.
Fukuoka
Not so much a recommendation from my travel agent as a "Fukuoka's pretty nice" was enough to pop this city on my itinerary. I didn't have the most favourable arrival: all of the train station exits had charming names, none of which indicated which one I should take for the five minute walk to my hotel. Cue me leaving by exactly the wrong exit turning it into a twenty minute slog with my burdensome luggage. The hotel meanwhile was serviceable but my room had all the charm of a cupboard and about as much of a view, looking as it did immediately onto the stairwell of the opposite building.
But the sights make up for that surely? Well... Ohori park is lovely in the bright sunshine, but is just a park, and the castle ruins are... fine. They do give you a nice look out over the city, but for a tourist, Fukuoka is really only a jumping off point for day trips elsewhere like Nanzoin and Mojiko.
I opted to visit Dazaifu which has the expansive Tenmangu temple complex as well as a few other interesting things to see around the snoozy little town. Straight out of the train station you're funnelled up through a street of confectionery stores and restaurants before you get to the giant torii gate outside of Tenmangu, and it was heaving with people. Not quite the crush and clamour of Otaru but just busy. After getting to the temple I immediately veered off the main route and explored side temples, forest paths, sculpture gardens, and more in between just to get away from the throngs of people. Later I took a short (ish) walk out of the temple complex to Kanzeonji which involved walking through some surprisingly rural parts of the countryside. Further on the "ruins" of the old government building turned out to be very ruined, with only a collection of buried stones left in an expansive park. With the other main attraction, Komyozenji, closed for renovation, I made the journey back into Fukuoka, happy to have at least been out of the city for the day.
Hiroshima
I last came to Hiroshima in 2006 as a day trip from Kyoto on the recommendation of someone in my tour group saying the Peace Museum was worth the trip. It absolutely was then and still is now, though how much it has changed in the intervening years I couldn't say as my memory isn't that good.
Compared with Nagasaki's A-Bomb museum, Hiroshima's Peace Museum is somehow more harrowing and impactful. Just walking down the entrance hallway to the permanent exhibits and you're greeted with a haunting photograph of one of the survivors, and from there you are subsumed into stories and photos and trinkets from the lives of people affected by the bomb. I'd picked a day when four million school children were visiting, and though they were all admirably respectful, without the space or time to process what I was seeing and reading I quickly became numb, shuffled unceremoniously onto the next exhibit by the flow of people. Like Nagasaki, the sections on disarmament and the political environment around nuclear weapons were the more interesting sections for me, perhaps because they point more to the future rather than painstakingly pinning the grisly past.
I also took a half-day out to the island of Miyajima, most well known for its "floating" torii gate, pictures of which have adorned innumerable guides to Japan throughout the years. It's an iconic view and refurbishments on it completed at the end of 2022, just in time! Because it's so well-known though, Miyajima feels very... touristy. I often tell people if they're thinking of coming to Japan to just do the "tourist" places - Tokyo, Kyoto etc. because they don't feel like tourist traps. Miyajima felt a little Cleethorpes in summertime, and not just because of the immense amount of foreigners.
Perhaps it was because my mood was on a downswing, or the middling weather, but I definitely wasn't feeling it. Even the "sacred" deer that roam the island felt a little scruffy as they shed their winter coats. In an attempt to inject some creativity into the day I popped the fish-eye lens onto my camera, on loan from my very good friend John Leach. It doesn't natively fit on my camera so a lot of the time I was coming to terms with not only the absurd field of view, but also having to manually focus and adjust the aperture like some sort of cave person. Most amusing was when other people in my wake tried to take the same shots as I did and were thoroughly confused as to what I was shooting.
On a nicer day, with a better mindset, Miyajima would have been a rewarding little excursion. Off the main thoroughfare of Itsukushima, Daisho-in temple and Senjokaku hall were both blissfully quiet and well worth visiting. I'm guessing as I get closer to the big tourist spots - Osaka on the 1st April, then Kyoto on the 4th - more and more I'll feel the impact of Japan being closed to tourists for several years. Especially as I've attempted to time my Kyoto visit to coincide with cherry blossom season (they're slightly early this year but I should still get the tail end of them). I have sequestered eight days in both Kyoto and Tokyo though, so hopefully the proliferation of tourists (and the usual tumult of being in a major city) won't be so beleaguering. Besides, I have plenty of time on little-visited Shikoku and the Kumano Kodo walks either side to look forward to!
Sidenote: books
I stocked up on Kindle books before I left and didn't really expect to get through them as quickly as I have. Amazing what half an hour here and there in a train station or waiting for a bus will let you to accomplish. Thus far I've finished The Tokyo Zodiac Murders by Soji Shimada (I'm new to murder mysteries, this was beyond my skill to predict), Leviathan Wakes by James S. A. Corey (it's been long enough since I watched the TV series for me to have forgotten the particulars, this was a great read though), Fugitive Telemetry by Martha Wells (flipping love Murderbot), La Belle Sauvage by Philip Pullman (slow first half, unsatisfying second), and I've just started on Oathbringer by Brandon Sanderson and Ashes of Victory by David Weber.
If you've not used a Kindle before, it very helpfully tells you how long it'll take you to read each chapter and the book as a whole. I'm not a fast reader so most books are in the 4-8 hour range. Oathbringer on the other hand is estimated at 30 hours. It's a superb read and Sanderson absolutely knows his craft, but after each "part" (basically a full book in itself) I take a breather and read a different book in between.
The next ten days
- 19th Mar - Shimanami Kaido cycle day 1, to Omishima Island
- 20th Mar - Shimanami Kaido cycle day 2, to Imabari, then transfer to Matsuyama
- 21st Mar - Matsuyama
- 22nd Mar - transfer to Kotohira
- 23rd Mar - transfer to the Iya Valley
- 24th Mar - Iya Valley
- 25th Mar - Iya Valley
- 26th Mar - transfer to Tokushima
- 27th Mar - Tokushima
- 28th Mar - transfer to Takamatsu
This was hand-crafted by John.