Kyushu Spring Vacation Part 3: Transcendence in Nagasaki

Originally I was going to visit Kumamoto City in the middle of Kyushu to check off the third famous castle of Japan from my list, but the more I thought about it I realized I wasn't done with Nagasaki and I've been trying to move away from checklist travel.  I didn't "do" very much, but I will remember that day for a long time.

I had read and heard that the view from the top of Mount Inasa was one of the best in Japan, especially at night.  I wouldn't get a chance to see it at night, but I figured it was still worth a look during the day.  I got to the mountain basically by pointing myself in its direction and walking until I got there and onto the winding road to the top.  There was a cable car, but it cost money, and doing it my way meant I got to wander through neighborhoods, one of my favorite pastimes in a new city.  The slope of the hills makes them especially dramatic in Nagasaki.

I managed to hit the sakura season pretty dead-on, and incredibly there was almost no one else walking the road.  It was an incline, of course, but there was a sidewalk all the way up to the top and it was lined with cherry trees the whole way.  Absolutely gorgeous.

At the top I had my pick of three peaks, with their own observatories and park areas.  Of course, and very unfortunately, there was a gigantic parking lot as well

The highest peak is of course the famous Mount Inasa, and while I didn't experience it at night, it was breathtaking.  And I think I got a pretty good idea about the night view from this plaque:

Only in Japan.

A quick note about this picture.  This is facing up into the hills, the harbor is to the right.  The picture is centered more or less on where the atomic bomb was dropped.  The location was picked because of these same distinctive steep hills: they focused the blast and produced more damage.  Nagasaki was picked because it was and is an industrial city--however, I don't know what it was like then, but now all of the industry is centered around the harbor, in a significantly different area.  This is just residential. 

A famous torii gate that was only 800 meters from the hypocenter but remained half-standing.  It has been structurally reinforced for safety but otherwise remains as it was.

The other torii pieces.  They reminded me very much of the ruins I saw in Rome, interestingly enough.

Nuclear scars.

I saw this plaque after taking the picture above, and it floored me, because I took mine from almost the exact same spot.

As I turned away from reading the plaque, I caught sight of an old man on the adjacent busy street.  He was in the process of taking off his cap and bowing towards the torii gate, and I was directly in line with his bow.  Because of the timing of my turn, I couldn't tell whether he saw me turning and was bowing to me in appreciation of my visit to this spot or if the bow was a consistent ritual for him.  Either interpretation, and perhaps also that ambiguity, is powerful enough to move me to tears now as I write this.  He was old enough to have been alive during the war.  There is often so much dignity and restrained but fully-felt emotion and respect in the people I meet and see here, and it is extremely humbling.

"Peace is more precious than a piece of land...let there be no more wars."

- Anwar Al-Sadat

On the way back from a beautiful and powerful day.