Weather: sunny and humid 15°C, high 25°C
Accommodation: woke up at Ryoso Kawaguchi.; went to bed at Hotel Monterey Nagasaki
Transport: Miyajima 11:25 –> Miyajimaguchi 11:35 (JR Miyajima Ferry Maru)
Miyajimaguchi 11:58 –> Hiroshima 12:18 (JR Sanyo Line)
Hiroshima 12:27 –> Hakata 13:41 (Shinkasen Sakura 553)
Hakata 13:55 –> Nagasaki 15:50 (Limited Express Kamone 25)
I woke at 5:30 am and couldn’t get back to sleep. Why?! WHY?! The boys woke at 8 am, and we packed up as today was a moving day. It was a challenge finding all the self-inking stamps that Eskil had thrown all over the room.
We walked to the 1,000 mat shrine. It was really great. It’s a stunning old wooden building, and the rafters are full of old paintings and wood carvings.
We walked to the wind chime shop we’d missed the day before, and they were just opening at 10 am. It is run by an old couple. We bought a crane wind chime and 2 monkey hooks.
We said our good byes to the ryokan and were given a lift to the ferry terminal.
Off we went for Miyajimaguchi, then a train to Hiroshima. We quickly grabbed some baked goods in Hiroshima train station, then took the 12:27 Shinkasen Sakura 553 to Hakata.
From there we took the 13:55 Limited Express Kamone 25 and arrived in Nagasaki just before 4 pm. The view from the Kamone of Kyushu at first showed lots of larger, more industrial looking rices fields than we’ve seen so far in Japan. Then as we went through a hillier area, there were a lot of smaller, stepped fields and citrus groves. The train conductor and refreshments trolley lady both bow coming and going from the carriage. And we had a cute neighbour.
The tourist information centre in Nagasaki train station was a bit hopeless, but I picked up a map. I had already looked up the trams to the hotel, but there was a big overpass with a million steps to get to the tram stop in the middle of the busy road front of the rail station. And for once there didn’t seem to be a lift; almost unheard of in Japan! No way were we going to do it with our big bags, so we gave up and went to the taxi rank. As it turned out, that was a great decision. There was an English speaker at the taxi rank who asks the name of your hotel, and he tells the taxi and helps you in with your things. The taxi is CLEAN and full of lace covers. Nagasaki is so much smaller than I realised, so we were at the hotel in no time – and it didn’t cost much at all.
Eskil had been asleep for the last ½ hour on the train and had to woken up when we reached Nagasaki, but he was still a very tired boy indeed. When we got to the hotel Scott thought it would be a good idea not to go out again. I headed out for a short walk. I saw a schnauzer in a harbourside park!
The area of Nagasaki we were staying in is called Dutch Slope. It’s a hilly district where a lot of foreign merchants used to live. Our hotel looked like it was straight out of Portugal, and our street was full of former consulates. We were in the flat part of Dutch Slope not far from the harbour where cruise ships leave from, but the hill basically lept up from there. Mind you, Nagasaki is quite hilly in general.
I bought supplies from 7-11: grapefruit highballs, Suntory Premium all malts beer, and lots of food – salads, sandwiches, yogurt, cashews. Eskil had us touch glasses together and see ‘cheese!’.
A long day of travel!
More photos can be viewed at https://www.flickr.com/photos/cragg-ohlsson/archives/date-taken/2015/10/05/.