[Thursday, December 24, 2009]

 
22/12/2009: Nagasaki/Fukuoka, Japan
Final day in Japan before flying off tomorrow.

We went south to Glover Gardens--a very pretty park with historic buildings in a very pretty neighbourhood. Given more time, we would have gone into the Storybook Museum. It really is the best view in the city.

The downer of the day was the Atomic Bomb Victims Memorial and the attached Museum. It's another confirmation that the human race will end itself one day and it will be the decision of some crazy person giving a single order. And we've got so much better at it since 1945 too.

As I have been to the Hiroshima Peace Park and Museum, I could anticipate what was in store--all the sad, terrifying remnants of lives cut short. A, Ed and Xian were thoroughly horrified and I got horrified a second time around.

We decompressed on the train ride back to Fukuoka--Xian was seriously bummed by how the whole thing was so cold-bloodedly planned and executed by so few people. Yeah, that's how it'll all end.

Why can't we just stop killing each other?

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[Monday, December 21, 2009]

 

21/12/2009: Kagoshima/Nagasaki, Japan

Got up and went to the Ferry Terminal downtown where the ferries are frequent and cheap. We decided to rent a car to go around the peninsula formerly known as an island from Sakurajima Renta Car. 4500yen for 2 hours. Not bad.

The view from the observatory was not too bad. We could see that the caldera was smoking and leaking into the low-lying clouds.

This is a shout-out to the nice people at Sakurajima Renta Car--they gave us slightly over-ripe mikan when we returned the car and offered to drive us up the road to the Rainbow Sakurajima Hotel for lunch! I love the extras people throw in every now and then.

Lunch at the Rainbow Sakurajima Hotel was decent--the fried chicken set was good--and a word of warning for tourists, there are limited food options in the area around the ferry terminal. Ditto the entire peninsula formerly known as an island. There's a cafe and a combi across the road from the Rainbow Sakurajima Hotel--and that's all I've seen. Even after going around the island and stopping here and there.

Took a late afternoon train to Nagasaki and arrived at 9pm. Found a late dinner of steak at the mall attached to the station before going back in the cold and heading to our beds.

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