Travelling around Nagasaki is easy. In the central city area there are four tram routes with tram cars running every few minutes on each. A ride costs a flat fare of 100 Yen, or an all day ticket costs 500 Yen. With an all day ticket, we can ride as much as we like.
This morning we caught the tram up the valley to the Peace Park and Museum.
The atomic bomb was dropped on Ngasaki three days after the one on Hiroshima and it goes without saying that the damage was just as horrific. Seventy thousand people died and another seventy five thousand people suffered extensive injuries. This means that 75% of the entire population of the city were either killed or wounded. We saw the displays in the museum and the nearby hypocentre of the a-bomb explosion.
The local food specialty here is Champon – a Chinese dish of seafood and vegetables with noodles. We had a large bowl for lunch in a restaurant near the Peace Park.
After that, we caught another tram to visit the Suwa Shrine. It was a very grand wooden building and reached by many flights of steps under a series of toriis. It had a nice little garden and I was able to take a few good photos of the pond and goldfish.
A further tram ride took us to a shopping arcade and a welcome coffee and rest in a coffee shop. David complained about the poor quality of the coffee, but I was just glad to have a ‘sit down’ for a while.
We found a shop in which I could buy a new cal to replace the one that blew off my head yesteday as we were crossing a pedestrian overpass. These days, I need something on my head to stop it becoming sunburnt.
To end the day, we had a nice meal with David at his hotel and caught the tram back to where we are staying.
