Nagasaki, Lazy travelers, fast trains, boats and such!

Just a little sulfurous gas. This spot is named the Japanese word for hell, then each part of the hot springs has hell in its name.

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Heres an incredibly cheesy tourist picture in front of a spot that 26 christian followers were sacrificed. Pleasant.

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Peace memorial... no comment.

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The Nuclear Bomb Hypocentre. On August 9, 1945 at 11:02 a.m the 'big boy' nuclear bomb exploded 500m above this point.

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'big boy'

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Right then, volcanoes... From there we went to Unzen (the hot springs noted above) to check out some more volcanoes, but seeing as the beer hall was closed there didn't seem much reward for a hike, so we took the early bus onto Nagasaki.

After checking into an ever so dingy ryokan we started the sightseeing with the old dutch and portugese settlements. If any of you have ever read Shogun, you have an idea of what I'm talking about. If you have never read Shogun, do so. Immediately. It's written by James Clavell. 

The next day we made our way to the ever horrific nuclear bomb park and museum as well as the hypocentre of the bomb. I think for some reason Nagasaki is ignored in favor of Hiroshima, despite being the larger of the 2 bombs it was the second, and not quit as a shock as the world's first. Since then there have been over 2,000 atomic bomb tests, over 1,000 of those are by the U.S. So who's the terrorist?

In a horribly ironic way Nagasaki's current success and the end of the war is a testament to the force of violence. In a much more forceful way, the bombs were horrific in a totally indescribable way of which I will not even attempt to touch on. If you are ever in Japan I highly recommend a visit to open our eyes just that little bit more. 

After seeing all Nagasaki had to offer we jumped the trains to Nima, where we are tonight and to the lovely abode of a Buddhist priest and his wife, most certainly off the tourist track, or so I like to believe. Tomorrow is a long run followed by silver mines and Im sure an excess of temples/shrines and just maybe some more old stuff. 

While eating breakfast on a bench at the train station an elderly lady and what appeared to be her middle aged daughter joined me at the bench for a discussion. Of course this was a somewhat unusual discussion considering I don't speak a word of Japanese and she didn't speak a word of english yet she managed to go on, without pause, for just over 10 minutes. At first when she did pause to breathe I would say something along the lines of 'I don't speak Japanese', in english of course, but as this soon proved useless I just resorted to the occasional 'hi' (yes) every so often. Then at one point the eager elderly lady pulled out a pamphlet and handed it over hoping that I could read and maybe understand the word of god through it. Of course this was only one of my possible conclusions as to her intentions, the other main possibility that crossed my mind was that they were both either covert spies or more likely expert con artists. As she handed me the pamphlet the younger lady walked around behind me and placed both her hand on my back, which could signify a relaxing shiatsu massage, an attempt to draw the sin out of me, or preparation to hit a fully paralyzing nerve to temporarily immobilize me while they purged me of all my worldly belongings. Luckily for me none of the above was true and I got off with several more hi's and other vague Japanese words which may or may not have been correct for the situation, whatever situation that was.

Tonight I had the opportunity to try on a traditional dragon slayer dress, or so described by our hosts and their ever helpful 30 minute video detailing the last ceremony of the dragons. Pretty cool actually.