Japan 2015 Day 24: Exploring Nagasaki

Weather: sunny and humid 15°C, high 25°C

Accommodation: Hotel Monterey Nagasaki

We took the tram to Starbucks for brekkie. Eskil was so excited about the tram!
E is excited to be in another tram town!
A Nagasaki tram

Between the tram and Starbucks Eskil was admired by several older people; lots of calls of ‘kawaii’. The magic glass sliding door button!
Door opening

After breakfast we walked along the canal, Nakashimagawa Park, to the lovely stone bridges like the Megane-bashi/Spectacles Bridge.
Megane- bashi (Spectacles Bridge)
Eskil loved the jumping stones and watching carp in the canal. We spent quite a lot of time here!
Jumping across the Nakashima River
Many carp
Tortoise in the Nakashima River

We made our way on foot to the Dejima, where foreign merchants used to be segregated from the Japanese population. It was kind of boring to be honest. The most interesting thing about it was other visitors – like the older tour group I took a group photo for and the small group in traditional costume I took photos for. There were rubber stamps to collect, but there were also lots of school boys hunting them out.
Giant bird!
Not a welcoming wall
Making friends in the Dejima

We headed back to our neighbourhood and checked out the cruises that left from near our hotel, but they would have taken all afternoon, meaning we wouldn’t see other things, and cost quite a bit. We decided to look at the Glover Gardens Walking through the neighbourhood towards the Glover Gardens you can certainly see the influence on architecture that former residents left and that is reflected in the name of the area, Dutch Slope.
Dutch influence
Before heading to the Glover Gardens, Eskil of course needed ice cream.
Nagasaki ice cream
We found the Glover Gardens kinda meh (maybe it was us and we were just tired?) but had lovely views of Nagasaki.As gardens they weren’t spectacular, but as a place to look out over Nagasaki and chat with people it was nice.
Nagasaki from the Glover Gardens
One of our favourite parts of the gardens wasn’t actually the gardens; it was the video footage and floats from Nagasaki Kunchi Festival.
Floats from the Nagasaki Kunchi Festival

We’d been looking forward to taking the ropeway but found out it was closed for renovations. Poo! We bought some bread on the way back to our hotel and had a nap.

In the evening we went back out and walked to Chinatown for dinner.
Pout
Nagasaki Chinatown
Nagasaki Chinatown
Food
Tuesday night in Nagasaki's Chinatown (not its busiest night I'm guessing)
It's dripping!

We had a great meal, and enjoyed walking to and around Chinatown – it wasn’t busy at all! Our hotel was close, so we walked ‘home’ again (via 7-11 for beer and grapefruit highballs and yogurt and cashews).

More photos can be viewed at https://www.flickr.com/photos/cragg-ohlsson/archives/date-taken/2015/10/06/.