Nipon

The Japanese are some of the most helpful and friendly people I've encountered in my Asian travels. On April 30th, we entered Nagasaki and were immediately greeted with gracious and welcoming locals. It took only a small detour on the tram, which is more of a streetcar, and we figured out the public transportation system. I wasn't expecting to see very much English in Nagasaki so I was surprised to see that almost every street sign, map, menu, etc had English in addition to Japanese. However, very few people speak English so we quickly became practiced in the art of pointing.

Our first stop in Nagasaki was none other than the atomic bomb memorial and museum. I can't begin to describe the overwhelming emotion of standing at the hypocenter of that horrific bomb. The area is called Matsuyama-Machi and a large black obilisk stands at the hypocenter surrounded by concentric concrete circles, symbolizing the atomic cloud of radiation. Jeremy and I just stood there for about 30 minutes while reading the sobering statistics of the aftermath of August 9, 1945. With a total population of only 240,000, the immediate death toll was 74,000, with 75,000 critically injured and 120,000 left homeless.  We eventually entered the museum and were confronted with an array of tragic pictures, videos, stories and artifacts.    
My first observation of Nagasaki was that it seemed very run-down with poor infrastructure - especially for the advanced Japanese society. But upon seeing the pictures of the beautiful temples, cathedrals, city buildings and homes that were completely demolished, I realized that this entire city had to be re-built with limited resources in the tumultuous war-torn Japan.

After being thoroughly convinced that all nuclear weapons should be destroyed, we ventured into downtown Nagasaki for some food. One would think that most restaurants and vendors in Nagasaki would take VISA, but one would be wrong. One would also think that ATM machines would be easily accessible and dispense YEN with any major debit card, but yet again, one would be wrong. We wandered around for a 1/2 hour trying to find a working ATM because not a single restaurant would take VISA. Jeremy and I had exchanged dollars for Yen, but our fellow cast mates only had their cards. Even the McDonalds wouldn't take a VISA.  And, none of the ATMs would accept our debit cards.  Nagasaki is no Tokyo!  We finally found a post office with an international ATM.  

With Yen in hand, we were hoping to find some sushi, but another weird quirk of Nagasaki is that most of the restaurants were closed at 3:30pm on Saturday. I guess we were in-between lunch and dinner and apparently restaurants take a break.   We finally found a small hole in the wall Japanese noodle house.  I had some delicious shrimp Udon and green tea. No sushi, but I had lobster mango rolls while in Hong Kong a few days ago, and honestly I don't think they could've been topped, so I was very happy with my Udon :)

We shopped around a bit at the insanely crowded and gaudy neon-strewn streets before heading back to the ship on the #5 green line tram. Our timing was perfect too because right as we stepped into the port, rain came pouring down typhoon-style. It was beautiful to watch - would not have been fun to be stuck in!

May 2nd was our port day in Kobe, Japan. It's amazing the difference between Kobe and Nagasaki - Kobe was definitely more of what I was expecting from Japan: very colorful, crowded, clean, technological and yet still green and beautiful.  As you can imagine, all of us wanted real Kobe beef. However, as I'm sure you can also imagine, it was SO expensive since the beef is the city's main claim to fame. For a small steak, the cheapest price we saw was 60,000 yen...that's about $60 US dollars! The prices went up from there, with a large steak costing 140,000 yen, or $140 dollars. We did not have Kobe beef.  But we did have dinner at a little Japanese restaurant with pictures as our only guide to what we were eating.  The food was delicious.  I thought it was interesting that we had to take our shoes off before sitting in our private booth.  I also had to take my shoes off before trying clothes on in a Japanese clothing  store called Uni-Qlo.  (Laura or Amy - have you heard of that store before?  I guess they are only in Japan and New York)

So besides having authentic Japanese food, even if it wasn't Kobe beef, what else did we think of while in Japan?  An actual Japanese garden of course :). We visited a beautiful garden within walking distance of downtown. It was called Sekouran Gardens and we spent about 2 hours there.  It was tranquil, peaceful and exhilarating all at the same time.  Kobe had a very interesting mix of old and new.  Also within walking distance was the Ikuta Shrine. Right in the middle of the chaotic city was this ancient shrine. Upon walking outside the gate, we were again swept up in the Ikuta district of shops, restaurants and hoards of people.

I have to say that of all the Asian countries and cities we've visited, Hong Kong is still my favorite. Because of the Japanese earthquakes and nuclear scares, we were re-routed to South Korea and Russia rather than continuing through Northern Japan. I hope to someday visit Tokyo - it might compete with Hong Kong - but until then Hong Kong remains the most dynamic, interesting, unique, and livable Asian city.

Up next - South Korea and Russia! Love you, 

J & J