Day 02 - Nagasaki

Nagasaki is situated on the northwest coast of the island of Kyushu and has a population of around half-a-million. It is most synonymous with that fateful day on 09 August 1945 when a US B-29 named 'Bockscar' dropped a Plutonium Bomb (Fat Man) onto the city killing 35000 people instantly. This came just three days after the bombing of Hiroshima. Interestingly, Nagasaki was not the primary target for this attack, it was actually the city of Kokura that was the target; however, cloud prevented Bockcar's crew from obtaining the visual; confirmation they needed, so they went on to Nagasaki, the secondary target.

Our Bus.

Lucky photographic timing from the comfort of my Bus seat.

We arrived at Nagasaki Airport just after 0900h local time after a long day's flying. Nagasaki Airport is located nearly 40km to the North-West of Nagasaki. Research told us that the best way to get to Nagasaki from the Airport was on a Bus, so bus we did. 


The terrain all around Nagasaki is very mountainous, so the the road is very windy and involves lots of tunnels. All-in-all the journey from Nagasaki Airport to Nagasaki Station was nearly an hour. There was also lots of roadworks underway to duplicate the current road to double the traffic capacity.

I couldn't believe how thin this building was.

Nagasaki Ekimae Station.

We had hoped to go straight into our AirBnB rental; however, we were messaged by the owner that there was going to be a delay for the apartment to be ready, and we weren't going to get in until late in the afternoon. So, as noted above we decided to head to Nagasaki Station and just do some local exploring. One of the main reasons for doing this was that we could secure our luggage in luggage lockers, so we wouldn't need to cart the bags around.

Nagasaki Station. The Luggage Lockers are on the bottom right of the photo.

KFC's Menu selection includes Pot Pie.

Looking out from the Catholic Nagamachi Church.

We had brunch at KFC...yeah , I know...but we were hungry and needed quick and easy. Besides, KFC here actually does a Pot Pie, who'd have thunk? After Brunch, we split off into two groups with Maureen and I wandering the streets.


We quickly found a church and two temples in quick succession and a large cemetery. 

The Catholic Nagamachi Church.

As we wandered through the cemetery, I couldn't help but wonder how many of the thousands of grave sites contained those who perished in the August 1945 blast.

The 18 metre high statue of Kannon.

A panoramic view from being Kannon.

The most interesting was the Kukusai-ji Temple which was founded in 1628 and later destroyed in 1945. Fukusai-ji has since been reconstructed in the shape of a turtle with an 18 metre high aluminium alloy statue of Kannon, the Bodhisattva of compassion.

The incredible Cemetery.

Can you spot Maureen?

So many stairs.

Nagasaki traffic.

The Harriuddusan Honbasu Temple was equally interesting with amazing old buildings and structures dating back to the 16th century.

After this we headed back to Nagasaki Station and its adjoining shopping centre, Amu Plaza Nagasaki where we met up with Sky and Kyle. 

Nagasaki Station.

Onboard the Trolley Car.

Maureen and I ducked out later to collect dinner, which was an adventure in and of itself. There were so many lanes and narrow roads that we travelled to get to our Seven-Eleven destination and the fact that I managed to accidentally close my Google Maps page on my phone three-quarters of the way there had us worried that we would get lost and Sky and Kyle would starve to death.

Innovative use of parking space.

We then headed off on the light rail to the Peace Park Station for a pretty long walk to our accommodation, which was now ready.


The accommodation is fairly rudimentary, with the basic creature comforts and all important wifi. We are turning in very early tonight as we are all completely exhausted.

The vista during our walk to Seven-Eleven.

Let's see what tomorrow has in store for us as we walk down to the Peace Park and a place that is ominously called the Hypocentre Park, which I assume must be larger than an 'epicentre'.