I’ve arrived in Nagasaki from Kokura. A strange coincidence, Kokura was the primary target of the “fat man” atomic bomb, but due to cloud cover, Nagasaki, the alternative target was hit. The second of the disgusting and unnecessary attacks killing an combined estimated 210,000 including hundreds of American prisoners.
I leave a bag at my hotel, and head of to the Atom bomb museum, having seen the Hiroshima museum around 7 years ago, this another testament to the insane danger of nuclear weapons, American arrogance and the consequences of such warfare.
After checking in, I decide it’s time to eat something, as the breakfast pastries being a distant memory and the brunch of spicy breaded chicken and a bag of potato chips not enough. I head for pork buns in chinatown, grabbing a couple (¥1,000) to eat in. Cheaper than London chinatown possibly, but I could get an insanely good garlic tonkotsu ramen for less. Deciding I need something to wash this down with, what else can I do but go for the green labelled Coca-Cola (¥178) I see in a 7-11. K-Wave Limited edition flavour emblazoned on it, it’s only after I walk out the door I notice “Fruity Fantasy Flavoured”. Suits You Sir. It’s not bad, like an attempt on cherry coke but not quire making the grade.
Day two starts with waking at 5am to thunder, lightning and a torrential downpour. I go out to grab a couple of photos while the streets are quiet, the hotel kindly giving me a good umbrella that keeps my head and importantly my camera dry.
Unfortunately it’s non-stop rain here, and the cloud cover is so low that I can’t travel out to the crater edges to get my desired shot of the town. At least the temperature is nice, and in the brief respite I manage to take some photos around the port area, and it’s so warm I have to remove a layer. I’ll definitely come back to Nagasaki and put it on the list of long term stay locations.
I’m now in Nagasaki station again, having had my customary pastires earlier with self made drip coffee, I’m reticent to spend, but I’ve time to kill and it’s raining. Seattle’s Best Coffee is near, so I get a tall black coffee and a pecan cake (¥780) then find a table. The cake arrives at the counter covered in some kind of additional gloop that looks like the contents of a Cadbury’s cream egg, pure sugar. My coffee and cake bliss is interrupted when a couple arrive at a near table, and one or both of them stinks, seriously stinks, so much so that the usually polite Japanese folk around are deparint for table further afield, or like mu just departing. Next stop Osaka.