Japan 3.6: Nagasaki gardens and the Atomic Bomb Museum

Yesterday, we left Unzen for Nagasaki.  We dropped off the rental car and went straight for the Peace Memorial and the Atomic Bomb Museum.

The memorial had a pool up top, with pillars that went down to the subterranean memorial area.  These pillars formed a line that pointed to the atomic blast center.

Apparently, Obama had been here and learned a bit of Origami

We used a computer to look up testimonials from people who witnessed the blast and picked someone who had been 15 when the Hiroshima bomb was dropped.  Then, we went into a room where people could leave messages on either the computer or paper, writing messages of peace.  They posted that messages on the computer would last ten years untouched.  I wrote a handwritten message and hung it on the wall.



An underground passage lead to the Atomic Bomb Museum.  I had read somewhere that pictures were not allowed in here, though people were ignoring this if this was truly the case.  Nonetheless, I did not take pictures, out of respect.

There were items such as clocks, walls, a bent watertower, post explosion.  There were videos of the bomb dropping as well as videos depicting bomb victims an how it affected them.  There were some timelines and videos summarizing parts of the war leading up to the bomb, but they were very short.  I had really wished that they had had more detail to them.

Afterwards, we walked, and took a street tram back to the hotel area, which is right next to the train station.  We bought our tickets for Saturday, when we depart Nagasaki.  We had lunch at the mall attached to the station and then checked into our room.  We rested until a little before 5:00, and then began a long walk to the Glover Garden.

The Glover Garden was created by a Scottish man, and so bagpipe music was played throughout the garden.  The entrance, like most gardens, featured an outdoor escalator.



Once we got our ticket, we had to go up two more enclosed escalators.



We started at the top and walked down through the gardens.



When we left, it was about 6:00.  I had planned for us to go to the nearby Prefectural Art Museum, as it was free and had a rooftop garden that was supposed to offer panoramic views of the city.  It turns out that even though it is "free," there is actually nothing to view for free.  We had to pay to get into one small gallery, that was not at all worth it.  The rooftop "garden" was just grass on the roof.



On our way back to the hotel we stopped for dinner along the Dejima wharf.  The Dejima port was the only port that traded with the outside world during the Edo period of Japan.  We had Italian food to commemorate this.