Davin Reporting!
Today is our first day in Japan. To get the most of the experience, Kristin and I decided to leave the ship and make our way overland from Nagasaki. We’ll reconnect with the ship in a week in Hiroshima, just before it departs the Japanese mainland. The advantage of doing this is that we gain three additional sightseeing days that would otherwise be spent at sea. In addition, we’ll be able to see some sites that we otherwise wouldn’t be able to reach from the ship’s ports of call.
Because of the need to get packed up for our side trip, we got a bit of a late start today. We departed the ship around 10 AM, and wasted more time buying an all day tram pass. Unfortunately, they wouldn’t take credit card for this, so we had to go get yen from an ATM. Then at the ATM there was a long line, and when we got to the front neither of our online bank’s ATM cards worked (much later we discovered they’d been cancelled for “inactivity”, which is kind of obnoxious since you don’t find out about it until you finally have to use it!).
Fortunately Kristin had another ATM card, but it was rejected at first also, and she had to call the bank on the phone. It turned out the problem was I made a math error, so we were trying to pull out the equivalent of more than $850 of cash. Yes, Japanese Yen were only about 115 to the dollar, not 1000! Oops!
Finally we got underway and walked the short distance to the tram. The tram is basically like an old-style street car like you’d see in San Francisco. They’re kind of small, but I guess they get the job done. The tram took us to Nagasaki Eki Mae (Nagasaki Station Front), where we picked up our Japan Rail Passes, and booked tickets for the train this afternoon.
The JRP is a tourist pass that allows you unlimited use of the train for a specific period of time, with some minor restrictions (basically you can’t use the fastest bullet train services, and have to settle for the second fastest). Our pass was good for seven days. Because in Japan you can get basically everywhere on the train, the JRP ends up being a really good deal if you’re planning on seeing more than one city. Definitely look into it if you decide to visit Japan!
[Kristin Interjection: Since we hadn’t originally planned to leave the ship for our visit to Japan, we hadn’t done prior research into what we might need. Davin discovered the Japan Rail Pass while we were on the ship and headed towards China. To get the JRP it must be mailed to an address outside of Japan. They don’t want you to be able to get it once you’re already in the country. D was mad that we couldn’t get the JRP because we were on the ship at this point. Then I realized that we were meeting one of Natalie Leung’s best friends, and a fellow bridesmaid, in Hong Kong on March 10th. Vinnci graciously helped us out by allowing us to have our JRPs mailed to her address in Hong Kong. Thanks again Vincci!
What comes in the mail is a voucher for a JRP. So, we had to turn the voucher in for the actual JRP. So this was my first opportunity to put my rudimentary Japanese to good use. It worked wonderfully! I felt really good about being able to communicate.]
From there we made our way back on the tram to Dejima, which was at one time an island where the Portuguese traders were allowed to stay. Now, thanks to extensive land reclamation projects, the former island is located in the center of the city, blocks away from the shore. A lot of work is being done at this site, with more historical buildings being recreated, and plans to eventually restore the original bridge access, and even return the site to being an island.
During the Tokugawa Shogunate, Japan was mostly closed to the outside world. Dejima was established as a trading island for the Portuguese. They were restricted to the island to prevent them from proselytizing and converting everyone to Christianity. However, the Portuguese did not abide well by these restrictions and ended up getting expelled after only three years.
The Dutch were then allowed to set up shop there in their place, with trade being conducted by the Dutch East India company. Dejima was one of the only places where goods could be exchanged with the outside world. As a result, it ended up serving as a conduit for western scientific knowledge to enter the country, and Japanese culture to be exported to the world.
[Kristin Interjection: For 200 years, the Dutch were the only Europeans allowed to trade with Japan. Things worked out well because the Dutch cared about money and not about religion. Which is why my family prides ourselves on our Dutch heritage and culture. Davin and I are 25% Dutch on our Mom’s side. Despite having more Finnish blood in us than any other nationality, we are both primarily Dutch-Americans thanks to being raised almost exclusively by our Mom. We are proud of our penny pinching heritage, and proud that we continue to practice it to this day.]
The buildings at Dejima are recreated using authentic techniques to be as close as possible to the original structures, with only a few minor changes to address safety concerns (for example, the walls have some extra crossbeams added to make them earthquake safe). The buildings ended up being something of a fusion of local Japanese and European styles. The internal style and layout was basically Japanese, but some of the wall paper and other decorations were imported from Europe.
While at Dejima, a tour group from the ship showed up, but they just blew through and were gone in less than 15 minutes. Meanwhile we spent at least two hours there. That’s a problem with some of the ship tours: you see a lot of places, but sometimes they really rush you through. We also encountered a lot of Japanese women dressing up in kimonos, which seems to be something that people do here (visit an old site or temple and rent a kimono for the occasion).
[Kristin Interjection: One object that brought me great amusement at Dejima was a little desk globe which had a map of the known world on it from 1844. What interested me is that the map on this globe matched the one that we saw on the floor of the State Library of New South Wales which shows Australia as incomplete and running continuously into New Guinea to the north. It is so funny look into different windows of history in different parts of the world and to see the history overlapping because the time period of certain events was the same.]
It is interesting how Japan has vending machines all over the place so you can buy a drink almost every block. You can also buy cigarettes from the vending machines.
After leaving Dejima, we hopped back on the tram, which conveniently stops right out front, and headed over to the Nagasaki Peace Memorial. This is basically an area with various sculptures dedicated to world peace and solidarity. The sculptures have been donated by various countries around the world. I was surprised by the size of the main Peace Statue. In photographs or on postcards it looks like it might be life size, but it is actually 30 feet tall! We then went down the hill and saw the Atomic Bomb Hypocenter, which is centered exactly where the blast took place.
Obviously, this is a very solemn place to visit. It serves as a reminder of the people who died, and the destructive power of nuclear weapons. However, I am still somewhat conflicted about the dropping of the bomb. While it was terrible that people were killed, the truth is a lot of terrible atrocities were committed during WWII by the Japanese.
From the standpoint of the U.S., looking to prevent losing more American lives, I understand why our leaders decided to drop the bomb. I don’t know whether it was the right or wrong decision. I think the sad truth is everything about war is wrong, which I guess is the point of the Peace Statue.
We had considered going to the Atomic Bomb Museum, but decided we didn’t have enough time, so we headed back to the ship and grabbed a quick bite to eat at the Grill. We then grabbed our gear and exited the ship. There was about an hour before our train, so we should have had plenty of time to make it there with plenty of time to spare.
Unfortunately, things started to get a bit exciting at this point. When we got to the cruise ship terminal, the customs officers seemed surprised to see us leaving the ship with a large hiking pack. We explained that we were leaving the ship to travel overland for the next seven days, and for a moment I was concerned that they would say we weren’t allowed to travel on our own (even though that wouldn’t make sense, since we’d been cleared by immigration to tour Japan).
The customs officers had us substantially unpack our bags so they could be sure we weren’t smuggling anything into the country. I suppose they were just doing their jobs, but this was a delay we hadn’t expected. The process must have taken at least 10 minutes, eating into our buffer time.
Once we were cleared by customs we hurried to the tram station, and we were faced by our next setback. Usually the tram ran about once every ten minutes, but something seemed to have delayed the tram because it took forever to arrive. It took so long, that I wondered if we would have been better off walking to a different tram station. The trip to the train station required riding only two or three stations, and then switching over to a tram heading in the opposite direction on a different line.
As we arrived at the other tram station, a tram on the other side had already arrived. Time was now starting to run a bit short, and we couldn’t really afford to miss this tram. However, when we crossed over, we were confused whether this was the right tram or not. The line we wanted was the blue line, but this tram was colored white (some sort of special service?). Fortunately, Kristin’s rudimentary Japanese was good enough to ask a person on board if the tram was heading for the station, allowing us to jump on board.
We hurried through the station and made it to the train with about ten minutes to spare. While this was closer than you’d like, I suppose you have to take into account that we managed to absorb multiple setbacks and still make it to the train on time. Even had we missed the last tram there’s a chance we could have still made it to the train, although it would have been very close at that point. Also, it should be noted that had we missed the train, with our JRP we could still have taken the next train after at no charge, so it wouldn’t have been the end of the world.
Our destination was Okayama, which was about four hours away by train. Annoyingly, Nagasaki is not on the Shinkansen line, so the first two hours were traveling by local train. In those two hours we covered about 153 km from Nagasaki to Hakata. In the next two hours by Shinkansen (bullet train), we covered around three times the distance! Had Nagasaki been on the Shinkansen line, the whole trip would have been closer to 3 hours total!
At Okayama we walked a short two blocks to our hotel, and finished the day by eating some 7-11 take out food. Interestingly, here in Japan, 7-11 sells microwave dinners that are actually pretty good (either that or we have so little sense of what good Japanese food tastes like, that we just don’t know the difference). That’s fortunate because the options for fast food here are otherwise pretty limited!
One last unfortunate discovery for the day: although Japanese plugs are very similar to U.S. plugs, they are not actually compatible with our equipment. It turns out that they universally lack the third prong that many U.S. plugs have. That means we can still use our USB chargers, but our laptops are out of luck, and when their measly 2.5 hours of battery life is depleted, they won’t be turning on again! The really lame thing is we have a universal plug adapter on the ship, but I left it behind since I didn’t think it was needed.
Tomorrow’s Adventure: Okayama Castle and Himeji Castle En Route to Tokyo!
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